My grateful thanks to Jen Lucas of Jen Med’s Book Reviews, whose concept this is and who generously said I could use it.
The book I have chosen for my21st top read came as a total out of the blue surprise. An unsolicited review copy, I read it just before publication with very little anticipation, because it was from a genre that I tend not to read – urban fantasy or magical realism (I can’t tell the difference between the two, which probably tells you all you need to know about my comfort zone in this genre).
However, it is also a crime story and that is absolutely my genre, so I dived in and goodness me I was absorbed pretty much straight away.
In Old London, where paranormal races co-exist with ordinary humans, criminal verdicts delivered by the all-seeing Heralds of Justice are infallible.
After a man is declared guilty of murder and sentenced to death, his daughter turns to private investigator Yannia Wilde to do the impossible and prove the Heralds wrong.
Yannia has escaped a restrictive life in the Wild Folk conclave where she was raised, but her origins mark her as an outsider in the city.
The case could be the break she needs. She enlists the help of her only friend, a Bird Shaman named Karrion, and together they accept the challenge of proving a guilty man innocent. So begins a breathless race against time and against all conceivable odds. Can Yannia and Karrion save a man who has been judged infallibly guilty?
Yannia Wilde is one of the Wild Folk, someone who draws power from the natural world and requires the natural world to live and breathe. She has left her rather strict enclave in the country for reasons she alludes to but which are never clearly articulated and now lives in Old London, the City of London being the part where most magical people dwell.
London is a place where magical people and humans co-exist, with regulators on both sides who determine guilt or innocence. This shared set justice principles governs both communities and they often work together.
Beautifully imagined, Fallible Justice is at once a wholly convincing crime novel and an imagined world where you can all too easily identify with the setting and the characters. All in all, for me, an engrossing and enjoyable top class crime read that I just adored.
Read my review here
Buy the book Amazon Waterstones
Live and Deadly 