Fiction: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennet

    City of Stairs is a murder mystery set in a fantasy world containing god-fueled magical artifacts.  The story takes place in the ever-changing city of Bulikov.  Parts of the city disappeared when the gods of the Continent were killed and some remaining patches aren’t fully in the current reality.  There are many physics-defying elements, but the author does a good job helping the reader envision the strange setting.
     The main character, Shara, is a wonderfully smart, capable, witty spy who wears over-sized glasses and drinks far too much tea.  Her bodyguard-assistant, Sigrud, is a northern Dreyling, a giant, deeply scarred warrior-barbarian.   All of the characters in the story have human foibles and faults but remain endearing.

     The murder investigation is personal for Shara.  She admired the dead professor, the only person who knows more about Continental religion than Shara herself.  Her inquiry leads her to an old lover who’s embroiled in local politics.  He invites her to a party, which is attacked by devotees of the most repressive of the old gods.  The story, and the investigation, get more complicated from there—but the author’s expert pacing kept me engaged and turning pages to find out how Shara would unravel the next conundrum, and at no point was I unable to follow the storyline.

     Shara is a fascinating character.  She’s most empathetic with her assistant, Sigrud.  The two of them are clearly a talented team, but he’s prone to violent solutions and doesn’t hesitate to recklessly risk his life.  After one incident of mayhem, an appalled character questions his destructive methods.  Shara says, “We all have our talents.”
     We also glimpse her complicated relationship with her aunt, head of the spy agency, in their heated exchanges.  She is more successful bantering with the local governor, Mulaghesh, a cigarillo-smoking, foul-mouthed, ex-soldier who longs to retire to an island.  Shara’s ex-lover both attracts and repels her, for reasons that become more understandable as the story progresses.      

There are interesting moments of reflection throughout the novel:

• “The soul might be within the eyes, but the subconscious, the matter of their behavior, that is in the hands.  Watch a man’s hands, and you watch his heart.”
• “Envy the fire, for it is either going or not.  Fires do not feel happy, sad, angry.  They burn, or they do not burn.”
• In Shara’s estimation, lists form one half of the heart of intelligence, the second half being patience. Most espionage work, after all, is a matter of collecting data and categorizing it . . . So whenever Shara is really puzzled by something, she takes her thoughts and sorts them, threshing them out like chaff from wheat, tunneling down and through her mind as she tries to wring truth from everything she knows . . .

The mythology of the novel hinges on gods created and sustained by their worshipers, who also influence thier worshipers.  These Divinities “draw power from the hearts and minds and beliefs of a people.  But that which you draw power from you are also powerless before.”  As human ideas of the gods evolve, the gods themselves change to match those ideas—not always for the better.

     By the end of the story, Shara puts everything together and solves the mystery.  The closing scenes of the book both bring her story to a satisfying conclusion and set up the next phase of her life.
     City of Stairs is the first of a trilogy of books.  It’s a good choice for readers who enjoy fantasy mysteries, as it has strong elements of both, with mild romantic elements.

City of Blades continues the story and City of Miracles concludes the trilogy.
Also by Robert Jackson Bennett: The Tainted Cup

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