Incredible beginning to what’s sure to be an incredible series! 

I read Robert Jackson Bennett’s Founders trilogy last year, and honestly, it’s stuck with me ever since. That series is in my top five read series of all time, because of the world building, and the social commentary, and the characters, and the stakes. 

If the rest of this series is anything like the book I just read, then it’ll join my top five, unequivocally. The POV was first person (a sad realization for me, but ultimately my disdain for it is merely a personal preference) and it worked really well here. Din is a seemingly stolid, uncompromising character, devoted to rules and laws — but he grows so much over the course of the book that he grew on me too, and I liked him as our narrator and a character in and of himself. His boss, Ana, is a sassy demon of a woman, and I loved her instantly. She’s the brilliant Sherlock of this Sherlock and Holmes type fantasy mystery, but much more lively, funny, and sarcastic. These two were our main characters, but every supporting character felt real and grounded too, and none were wasted in the least. Bennett has always had a firm grasp on his characters and their quirks, how what happens to them changes them, and why they make the choices they make, and in this it is no different.

Where the book really shone, though, was the plot, against the backdrop of a fully realized, firmly established fantasy world. The way the story unraveled was nothing short of intoxicating, each new revelation earned and leading to the next. Bennett has a clever skill in revealing a new problem or question just as you might tire of the specific answer the characters are searching for, and for providing just enough information to keep you satisfied but still guessing. When we got to the climax, just before the reveal, I genuinely found myself aching to read even faster than I already was, just to know what was happening.

Fantasy has always had a well regarded place in our culture as a vehicle to shine light on problems in our world, and Bennett does this beautifully as well. We begin with a murder, which leads to more murder, and ultimately a race to uncover what might be a plot to unravel an entire empire via its defense of its shores from giant monsters referred to as leviathan. In the course of the investigation, we discover how the Empire functions, with class issues (as with the Founders trilogy) at the forefront: the way those with money derive their power, and what those with power do to keep and grow it. And then there are those affected by those actions, those impacted personally or professionally, and what they do or don’t do in response. The mystery was worth every bit of its name. It was so well crafted, and perfectly understandable. 

Was the book perfect? Probably not. But I was so engaged and enthralled by the story unfolding that I didn’t much care to note the faults — beyond one small little irritant during the reveal, whereby Ana says that the presence of a certain something would definitely prove the guilt of someone, and I’m not sure it does — and that’s why I’ve given it five stars.

Knowing Bennett, we haven’t seen the last of the leviathans, and what they truly are is likely far less insidious than the Empire’s populace believes. We also haven’t ventured beyond the Outer Rim of the Empire, and though they’ve said that’s where corruption lies thickest, somehow once we go inward I think we’ll find that to be untrue. 

I genuinely cannot wait for the next book. I don’t normally read unfinished series, but now that I have, I will be given the pleasure of having to reread this book before consuming the new one. Here’s hoping I don’t have to wait long.