Review: swords & sorcery mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 14, 2014
This is a short swords & sorcery novella (52 pages) where the quest is to solve a magically impossible murder. (Nice genre crossover, that.) It's told in first person by a snarky but not unlikeable narrator, the sorcerer Edar Moncrief, who teams up with a powerful Arbiter (cleric? warrior priest?), D'Arden Tal. Another Arbiter has been murdered, his crystal sword stolen, and that's impossible; nobody can even remember the last time an Arbiter died, much less fell victim to foul play. Besides, they aren't supposed to leave corpses behind. (If I'm following the world-building correctly, that is.)With Tal breathing down his neck, Moncrief has no choice but to investigate the Arbiter's death (doesn't help that he literally tripped over the body). In true detective fashion, they ask questions and look for evidence. The solution they find is a bit convenient (as in un-foreshadowed, the evidentiary ground not fully prepared for the reader) and the twist at the end satisfies even though it's a tad predictable (to widely-read mystery readers, that is).This is a well-written story by a talented author who knows his business. The snark fell flat for me, but that's probably because I'm kinda tired, here at the end of winter. Even without that element, the story's enjoyable. We'll call this one four stars.