The Justice of Kings (2022)

Konrad Vonvalt's authority combines investigation, judgement and supernatural coercion. His clerk Helena's account makes the defence of law increasingly difficult to separate from the defence of the empire employing him. A provincial murder gives this opening Empire of the Wolf novel a concrete case before its institutional stakes widen. Choose it for a sustained problem of accountability: what remains of a legal order when its guardians exempt themselves from its restraints?