★★★★☆ The Witness for the Dead, by Katherine Addison
Murder mystery with unconventional detective
The Witness for the Dead
Katherine Addison
Murder mystery with unconventional detective
Thara Celehar was a minor character in The Goblin Emperor, where he helped Emperor Maia solve a mystery. Celehar (Thara is a title for a minor priest) is a Witness for the Dead. That means he sometimes can learn from the corpse of a dead thing such things as the last thought, last sight, etc.
"Witness for the Dead" is both a personal ability and a legal position. Celehar spends every morning in a tiny office waiting for petitioners to ask him to help understand the circumstances of deaths in which they are interested. He has both the ability and the responsibility to investigate deaths, and to speak for the dead. These investigations are not restricted to his ability to hear the dead. He may also bring information he exposes to the attention of the courts.
In fact, Celehar is the closest thing the Empire has to a homicide detective. He is, in fact, virtually the entire homicide division of what passes for law enforcement in the city of Amalo.
Thus The Witness for the Dead is in fact a murder mystery. It is not uncommon in detective novels for the detective to investigate several mysteries, and this is such a novel. The principle mystery of the novel concerns the death of an opera singer, Min Shelsin. It turns out, in the end, to be connected to another death Celehar investigates.
A lot of other things happen. Right in the middle of the book Celehar travels to a distant city to help them deal with a ghoul problem. This interlude has little or no relevance to the murder mysteries. I feel obliged to remark that if you're not used to reading fantasy you may find Witness for the Dead tough going. The world-building is elaborate, and you must have the patience to learn about an entirely unfamiliar society.
Like many detective novels, this one becomes an examination of the character of the detective. Celehar is an admirable man, and I enjoyed getting to know him.