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This fantasy mystery novel is about a junior investigator, Dinios Kol, who is given the task of solving the murder of an engineer. He works with his eccentric superior, Ana Dolabra and they uncover a larger conspiracy within the Empire.

The investigation takes place during the “wet season” which is a time when enormous creatures called leviathans emerge. This creates a race against time to solve the murder before a larger catastrophe strikes.

Dinios is the novel’s narrator. He is a magically-altered engraver with perfect recall, but struggles to put the details he remembers together.

I thought the timing of this book was very good. It didn’t feel too spread out or too fast, however made-up worlds and universes confuse me and sometimes I tune parts of the story out.

I listened on Spotify and the reader, Andrew Fallaize does so many different voices because there are a lot of different characters and it did get confusing at times. In book club, we talked about how you usually don’t see fantasy and mystery together so that made it different and interesting.

Once the leviathans emerge, it felt like such a short amount of time that they are actually in the book and seemed like they’d play a bigger role according to the synopsis of the book. I was expecting more from them.

I liked the mystery and basis of the story but I didn’t really connect with the universe or characters. The one character I did like was Ana. I’m not sure what I pictured when I first heard her character, but I didn’t think she’d be someone to cuss so hearing her character swear was funny.

In book club, one person brought up how disability played a role in how the characters would be altered. For example, if they were dyslexic, their ability to have a good memory was heightened. I thought that was really interesting and something I hadn’t caught on to while reading.

I gave the book 3.5 stars. I enjoyed the story, but didn’t really connect with the universe or characters. I think if you’re into fantasy, you’d really enjoy it.