I received this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

This is a book that I went in knowing nothing about it but the title and the description, and I was wowed. This is an intricately designed murder mystery with political intrigue in a fantasy setting that didn’t require a massive info dump to piece together this new world and its rules and language. I throughly enjoyed it and with the ending implying a sequel I will definitely be seeking it out. 

As for the storyline, we follow Din, a detective’s assistant (Watson) who was changed and given the ability to remember everything he hears, sees and touches and is able to info dump that information to the detective who is a regular Sherlock. In this they investigate the murder of engineers, who maintain a wall from the leviathans (gross giants), and discover death, corruption, and conspiracies against the empire. 

In this book you will find: LGBTQA+ characters, graphic death scenes, gay romance that appears at the end of the book, sherlockian style observations, altered people, description of corpses, fantasy plants, poisons, political intrigue, corruption and a whole lot more.