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THE JUSTICE OF KINGS by Richard Swan is busy getting no shortage of glowing reviews, so I’m going to go ahead and add one more to the mix: this book is fucking outstanding.

First of all, that cover.

THAT COVER!!!

While Martina Fačková is an incredibly accomplished fantasy artist, this is her first Orbit cover! And goddamn, it just captures the moody tone of the book perfectly. I was just listening to Brian McClellan’s podcast, Page Break, when he & Lauren Panepinto (who does the cover design for most Orbit books, among other things) were chatting, and they were discussing how one of the biggest challenges for cover designers is forecasting trends, sometimes as much as three years in advance.

All of this to say, this cover is a fucking masterpiece, and I really hope we get to see some more of Martina Fačková’s beautiful art on Orbit covers in the future!

I think one of the best things about THE JUSTICE OF KINGS, and one of the things that makes it so easy to recommend is, this is a fantasy book that pulls in elements from a bunch of different genres. So if you knew a mystery or thriller reader who was interested in reading a fantasy novel, I think this would be perfect for them!

This is the first book in the EMPIRE OF THE WOLF trilogy, and yeah…THE JUSTICE OF KINGS just fucking rules.

Despite the brooding & grim countenance of Sir Konrad Vonvalt on the cover, the book is told from the first-person POV of Helena Sedanka, his clerk & protégé.

Vonvalt is an Emperor’s Justice, which is sort of like…he’s basically a detective, a lawyer, a judge, and an executioner all rolled into one. So he’s an intense guy, for sure. He’s also a war veteran, and his experiences have a way of both haunting him & informing some of his behavior. He is regimented, orderly, stern, and ultimately fair.

He travels around from one village to the next, meting out the Emperor’s justice. He is joined by Bressinger, a former soldier who served with Vonvalt, and Helena.

Helena was pulled from a life on the streets as a child by Vonvalt, and has been in his employ since. There are times when Helena feels like merely the second fiddle, but there’s an interesting mentor/mentee vibe at play between Vonvalt & Helena. And while Helena is grateful for the life she lives, she’s also very young, and so a lot of this book is about Helena’s internal struggle & desire to branch out, and possibly experience some whole other side of life.

There’s a grisly murder at the center of the story, and from there, well…the game is afoot.

THE JUSTICE OF KINGS is one of those books that walks a razor-thin line between dark & grim & gruesome, and something that’s also quite a lot of fun. There’s a fair amount of banter between these three characters who spend so much time together on the road…inevitably, they all have their shortcomings or eccentricities, and tensions are bound to spill over.

In the book reviewing world, we talk a lot about books that are difficult to put down. It’s a quality that can be hard to define, I think. But THE JUSTICE OF KINGS certainly had that quality for me. The book has relatively short chapters, some of which end in ways that have you feeling like “NO! WHAT?! NO FUCKING WAY. WHAT?!!,” and you just have to read one more chapter.

Just. One. More.

Needless to say, I got through this one in a hurry.

I adored Helena! There’s just something I love about the characters in fantasy novels that grew up scrappy, fighting every day to just get by…the gutter rats, as they think of themselves. I always find myself drawn to characters like this, and Helena was no exception. I loved the utter uncertainty of the character…she’s really struggling with who she wants to be, and where she wants to end up in life. In a way, she feels beholden to Vonvalt, though she’s free to walk away from this life at any time. There’s certainly an allure to possibly becoming a Justice herself, but some of the darker elements of this life seem to have worn her down a bit.

The corpses. The autopsies. The necromancy.

NECROMANCY?!!? Yeah, there’s some creepy weird shit happening in THE JUSTICE OF KINGS, and I’m here for it. I love a fantasy novel with a real subtle & foreboding kind of magic in the air, and this one has that vibe for sure.

I loved this book so damn much. Richard Swan’s writing is atmospheric af, but there’s also a fair bit of really dry humor to offset some of the gnarlier elements of this story. The core trio of characters are unique & charismatic, and the bond they all share is pretty special. There’s some great action scenes, there’s mystery, there’s romance, there’s talking corpses…this book does a lot different things, and the end result is something that feels absolutely compelling. I’m really excited to see what happens next in EMPIRE OF THE WOLF!

Massive thanks to Orbit for the copy! THE JUSTICE OF KINGS releases February 22nd!