[sleepwalkingdreamer]

TITLE: The Helm of Midnight (The Five Penalties #1)
AUTHOR: Marina Lostetter
GENRE: Fantasy, Mystery
PUBLISHED: April 13, 2021
RATING: ★★★★★

PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism

What drives someone to commit murder? Anyone who’s listened, read, or watched any number of true crime-related media will probably have a variety of answers to that question. Often, it’s self-defense: a person will kill another person in order to protect oneself, or another person. Other times it’s out of anger: someone kills someone else because they are angry at their victim. In yet other cases, it’s because the criminal wants to gain access to money, or power, or even another person, and murder is the only way to secure that access.

But serial killers – those twisted, bloody darlings of the true-crime genre – tend to have more complicated reasons for killing. The specifics vary between serial killers, but the general consensus appears to be that they kill because they are warped by a murky combination of psychology and life experience. This conclusion is usually borne out when one looks into those serial killers that have actually been caught and subsequently interviewed, such as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer, to name just a few.

This certainly appears to be the case with the serial killer Louis Charbon in the novel The Helm of Midnight, first in the Five Penalties series. Though his physical body is gone, Charbon lives on in his death mask: a magical artifact that houses the spirit of a dead person. When that death mask is stolen, Lutador’s citizens fear that the bloody murders Charbon was known for will once again disturb the city’s peace, which means the mask must be retrieved as quickly as possible.

Leading the investigation are the Regulators of Lutador, among whom is Krona Hirvath. Krona must use a combination of wits, connections, and a little magic to figure out just who is behind the theft of Charbon’s mask – and along the way, she uncovers the truth behind Charbon, and the bloody swathe he cut through Lutador a decade ago.

As with most fantasy novels, the first thing I focused on while reading this novel was its worldbuilding. Though the story is confined to the city of Lutador, the city’s population is very cosmopolitan, frequently referencing other areas beyond it. It’s clear there’s a large immigrant population in Lutador: a population that includes the protagonist herself, Krona, her family, and many of her fellow Regulators. I appreciate this take on a fantasy city: first, it allows the author to suggest a much wider world without leaving the confines of one (admittedly large) location, and second, it portrays the immigrants as people who work and live respectable lives. Take the following excerpt, for example:

The Hall of Records loomed over an open square where vendors from near and far set up carts. …

Most were clearly of foreign origin, though. A fruit vendor–which Krona often visited on her days off–displayed her harvests on brightly colored scarves she’d hand-spun from the wool of the alpacas her family raised in the low hills of the rim in Asgar-Skan. As Krona strode past, she slid her visor up and waved to the woman, whose skin was crinkled, tanned, and weather-worn. …

…

Near the Hall’s steps, Krona caught the scent of gunpowder tea and chicken tajine wafting from a stand that was little more than an unstained board suspended over two large earthenware pots. …

Striding up to the vendor, she removed her helm and gloves and tucked them under her arm. The man stiffened at her approach… His plucked-and-pierced eyebrows rose in worry before he asked for her order. His accent was light, just a twinge of deep Xyoparian. …

This excerpt makes clear that, though they might not be part of the upper class of society, most of Lutador’s immigrants lead good lives. It also allows readers from diverse backgrounds to see themselves in this city; thus creating a more immersive setting.

Another interesting aspect of the worldbuilding is how gender is constructed. There are five primary deities in this setting, and each is addressed by their own pronoun. Two are addressed by the he-she binary, represented by twins, and there is a deity addressed by “they”, but one deity is addressed as “zhe”, and another is addressed as “fey.” This is illustrated by the following excerpt, which comes from the novel’s Epigraph:

Zhe is the Minder of Emotion…

He is the Guardian of Nature…

Fey are the Vessel of Knowledge…

She is Nature’s twin, and the Purveyor of Time. …

They are the Unknown, pure and utter. …

In the novel, people identify as one of the five, though I suppose those identities can and do change and shift, as they would for people in the real world. As with the racial diversity of Lutador’s residents, the gender diversity allows the author to create a world in which readers can truly immerse themselves, regardless of gender. Also like the races of characters, gender diversity is treated as a commonplace, everyday thing: pronouns are mentioned in passing during narration, and in dialogue characters will offer their preferred pronouns if asked, or if the character they are speaking to makes a mistake.

What all of this means is that the author has clearly taken the time to build a world where conflict does not arise from issues of gender or race, as they so frequently do in other types of fiction, fantasy included. Inclusivity is a word that many people try to work with, but not many get it right. I feel the author has struck a good balance in this novel by creating a diverse world, but not centering the conflict on race and gender – which is especially good given that the author is white, cis, and (I think) heterosexual; therefore might not be in the best position to comment on certain issues connected to those two themes.

Of course, none of the worldbuilding would be worth anything if the world wasn’t also populated by interesting characters, and this is where the novel truly shines. Krona is a fascinating character: a sharp investigator who is willing to do what’s needed to get to the bottom of a case, but with a softer core that’s anchored in her devotion to her family and her innate concern for the welfare of the people around her. Take this excerpt, for example:

“It’s this concern,” De-Lia said… “And the Martinets. I can’t sleep enough, and when I get the chance…my dreams are no less worrisome than reality.”

“Same,” Krona said…

De-Lia patted her hand in comradery. … “Ugh. I can’t continue like this.”

“Have you asked one of the den healers for sleeping salts?”

“It won’t help with sleepwalking, they say. Or sleep…what was I doing?”

“Sleep-stabbing,” Krona said frankly, trying to maintain a lilt of humor. It wasn’t funny, of course. … Which was exactly why [Krona] did her best to maintain her smile. Everything weighed twice as heavy on De-Lia as it did on Krona. She wanted to stay positive… “You can have your saber back as soon as you apologize to the wall. I think it’s questioning its integrity.”

De-Lia chuckled half-heartedly. “Ha, puns. You are taking this much better than I would, had it been the other way around.”

Krona shrugged. “I’ve always been the stronger Hirvath. About time the fixtures around here knew it. …”

Here is another example:

[Krona] asked for a mug of tea…and a helping of the tajine. At first he refused her payment–the state required citizens to give members of the constabulary sustenance regardless-but she insisted and he eventually accepted her time disks. …

While she ate, Krona eyed the vendor, curious about his piercing. The gods forbade self-mutilation, and legally she could fine him for it…

In Xyopar there were no such laws.

…

Wiping her brown hands on the grass, she gathered up the mug and the tajine pot, and fumbled in her pouch for some extra time disks. She dropped the glass coins into the musician’s case on her way to return the earthenware.

Handing the dishes to the Xyoparian vendor, she flicked at her own eyebrow, letting him know she’d noticed. He sheepishly nodded, immediately pulling the hoop free.

It was sad to see him lose a little part of himself to the city-state. …

The section the excerpt comes from serves to illustrate not only the cosmopolitan nature of Lutador, but also gives the reader insight into Krona’s character, portraying her as an enforcer of the law, yes, but with enough empathy and compassion to feel a bit of loss to see someone have to cover up a piece of their identity just to comply with those laws.

This depth of characterization is not limited to Krona alone; it extends to the other major characters – including the serial killer, Louis Charbon, who has his own chapters interspersed with Krona’s and another narrator’s throughout the novel. Those chapters give the depth necessary for Charbon to come to life, showing the reader what really drove him to become the notorious serial killer Krona and the rest of Lutador remember him as – and it is not as straightforward as him simply being a man with a sick mind.

Speaking of Charbon, the novel’s plot is, essentially, a mystery of the kind one might see in shows like Criminal Minds, where investigators are tasked with capturing a serial killer before they claim more victims. The plot even has a similar structure to such shows, which generally provide the perspective of the investigator(s), the victim(s), and the killer(s), though of course the novel works a bit differently given that Charbon is technically dead. There is, however, one minor issue with the novel’s structure: how the novel jumps between different points in the overall timeline. While the respective narrators assigned to those timelines are written very well, and it’s not a chore to slip into their mindsets, it can be a bit jarring for one to have to readjust their sense of time within the novel’s plot every time one gets to a new chapter. Still, as I have said, this is a minor issue, and many readers will likely be able to ignore it once they’ve become accustomed to the voices of the novel’s narrators.

While the novel is very much about solving a mystery, it’s not just about crime and punishment. The novel plays with the concept of “one person’s terrorist is another person’s revolutionary,” but does so with a lot more nuance than some other authors have done, when attempting to play with the same theme. This plays out in Krona’s hunt for Charbon’s mask, and in the telling of Charbon’s story: a story that Krona doesn’t know in its entirety, but which is slowly revealed for the reader, gently coloring their perception of the man behind the mask Krona is trying to find. It is as I said earlier: Charbon’s reasons for doing what he did are not so straightforward as the reader might initially believe, and are certainly not so straightforward as Krona herself believes at first.

But embedded in that interplay between the truth as Krona knows it and the truth behind Charbon’s motives as told by the man himself, is the question: if the world works a certain way, but that way is unjust, then is this how the world is supposed to be? One can live by rules and guidelines the whole of one’s life, accepting them as not only true but correct because that is all one has ever known. But what does one do if those long-held beliefs are revealed to be unjust? What does one do when one finds evidence that “the way things are” is in fact oppressive and harmful? It also asks: if one wishes to change the world, what’s the right way to go about it?

None of these questions have easy answers, obviously, nor are they even answered in this book. After all, this is only the beginning of a series; there is time yet to develop those answers. What matters is that the groundwork is laid and I am very much looking forward to those developments.

Overall, The Helm of Midnight is an excellent beginning to what promises to be a fascinating new series. Strong worldbuilding and exceptional characterization are wrapped around an intriguing plot, the whole supported by interesting and timely themes. I really like what the author has built so far, and I am very much looking forward to seeing where Krona’s story goes – and what she does with what she has learned in this book.