Previous book in the world here, though not particularly a sequel. (Annoyingly, I can't recall when I read the first one and can't find it in a search.) This follows the work of Thara Celahar, professional Witness for the Dead, as he can sometimes pick up information off dead bodies. (I note this isn't something that seems to go on all the time, or very dramatically.) The cases he deals with are:
- The murder of an opera singer, who sounds dreadful except for her voice. Thief, blackmailer, spendthrift, and general asshole. Hard to nail down one particular suspect there. I note that Thara is attracted to a composer at the opera, who is a suspect, albeit not a particularly strong one, but this seems to remind Thara of his previous romantic misfortune (apparently he was involved with a married dude who killed his wife...awkward).
- He gets asked to do his job to determine who was supposed to be the heir in a will, and then the very prominent family Objects Most Strongly to the results, harassing Thara and forcing him to go through an ordeal of being stuck on a hill with ghosts to prove his um, innocence.
- He ends up on the trail of a guy who marries plain women with some money and then poisons them.
- He goes to another town to put down a ghoul, and then ends up helping a grandfather and granddaughter who have been separated to connect.
- While meeting said granddaughter, he ends up at the site of a horrible airship accident, and then gets harassed for not proving that someone did it deliberately.
This is kinda like following Columbo around on cases, I suppose. It's not a particularly deep novel like the last one, more procedural about different cases, no particular major personal development arc for the detective. But I enjoyed the reading of the mysteries. I just can't come up with much commentary on this, somehow? I'll give it three and a half stars.
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