An Interdimensional Murder Mystery with Librarians: Genevieve Cogman’s The Mortal Word

“And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.” —”A Scandal in Bohemia,” Arthur Conan Doyle

After all, Cogman’s time-and-dimension-hopping librarian lives in a “vaguely Victorian England with a tendency towards steam power, zeppelins, libertines, and Great Detectives.”

A murder has occurred in a Paris similar to the 1920s City of Lights we knew, and its reverberations may well destroy worlds—not to mention Irene’s parents. A peace conference between the Dragons (the forces of order) and the Fae (the forces of chaos) is underway in this version of Paris (seen as neutral territory) . These two communities of magical beings have been waging a covert war across worlds for as long as anyone can remember. The Librarians are tasked with keeping the universes stabile, removing dangerous books from the various worlds of the multi-verse and storing them in the inter-dimensional library.

No big stakes, then. Just Ireen’s own life, the lives of the Librarians being held hostage (including her parents) to ensure the Library remains neutral in the peace talks, and maybe the safety of all the known worlds.

With Irene are her allies: Vale and the Dragon Prince Kai, once Irene’s apprentice and now her potential love interest. (Now that she’s no longer his mentor… Irene’s scruples no longer apply ow that Kai no longer works for her.)The investigative party also includes representatives of the Dragons and the Fae, in the human forms that they wear in this Paris. Neither proves to be particularly helpful, nor particularly trustworthy. Solving the crime isn’t going to be so easy, even with the help of the great detective.

The Mortal Word is a fast-paced romp. Irene is accosted by the various representatives of the Dragons, who exude an ice-cold charisma, and the Fae, who are more unpredictable. The chief Fae representative at the peace talks is an enchanted princess, who embodies all the myths surrounding such fairy tale creations. That means, by turns, she is by turns both perfectly helpless and irresistibly rescuable, and irredeemably cruel (as princesses are wont to be in dark fairy tales). One never knows with myths.

Read it and see.

But mostly, read it for the sheer thrill of it. Like all the Invisible Library books, this one is crazy fun.

The Mortal Wold is available November 27.