After six terrific novels in his Twilight Reign series, Tom Lloyd has made a clean break and started out on a new series set in a new world. The central character in these new tales is Investigator Narin, a rising star in the law enforcement forces of Imperial City and set to realise his dream of becoming a full Lawbringer. During a tryst with the wife of one of the city’s ruling classes, a man who also happens to be Narin’s friend and unofficial career guardian, Narin knocks a Goshe warrior unconscious, and in doing so comes to the attention of a God (yes, a God) who was chasing the man.
This chance, unlucky encounter has Narin embroiled in plot to poison the entire city, robbing the people of their free will and turning them into an army capable of overthrowing the ruling elite, and raising the perpetrators to the heavens as Gods themselves. But with the help of an unlikely band of helpers comprising the Goshe warrior (sans memory), a young woman and an old man, Nirin sets out to foil them before everything and everyone he knows is destroyed.
It all sounds a little old hat when you start out but Lloyd is a canny writer and lifts the whole thing above the morass of fantasy books out there and makes the whole thing very readable. Like all first books in any series it’s front-loaded with a lot of world-building and scene setting to get the reader up to speed but the pseudo-oriental Empire City with it’s rival houses, Gods, demons and rich culture is unveiled expertly through Narin as he takes his investigation from one part of the city to the other, revealing social structure and class system, and in-keeping with modern, more gritty fantasy writing, the sentences are brief, the pace is quick and the action comes on thick and fast.
Narin is the perfect antagonist in that he’s not a hero, not the best fighter and makes mistakes in both his professional and personal life, but his motives are pure, he’ll always do the right thing and stand up for what he believes in. This means that by way of contrast the supporting cast has to be what Narin is not, so we have the old man with a few too many secrets, Enchei, prepared to do, and very capable of, extreme violence as a means to an end and stand side-by-side with Narin, Kesh the young woman who would rather not have got involved at all, but wants revenge for the death of her younger sister and a normal life for her mother who has had to go into hiding, and Lawbringer Irato, Narin’s boss and the kind of man Narin aspires to be. All three are very well drawn and interesting in their own right, Enchei a bit more than the others as he’s Narin’s best friend - seriously, he deserves his own book - and everyone else we meet serves their purpose adequately so we don’t get too bogged down with too many names.
Like all good detective stories there’s no let up for the lazy reader, the plot is multilayered with secrets and lies to be uncovered at every turn, and the world rich and detailed so you have to pay attention to make sure you don’t miss anything. That said, it will reward your efforts with a few hours of genuine thrills and spills, a new world and new characters to fall in love with and a whole bunch of frantic chase scenes, terrific fight sequences and an epic final battle that will keep you turning the pages long after you should have turned out the light.
You can read the first four chapters by clicking here, but Moon’s Artifice is published by Gollancz, and is available with free delivery from The Book Depository and on the high street from Blackwell and all good book stores.