PLATINUM MAGIC

A genre-defying work of genre fiction.

On a tip from an informant, Sgt. Simon Buckley leads a raid on a farmhouse in search of a terrorist bomb-making operation. What he and his team find instead are golems outside a laboratory environment, a cloaked figure armed with a dagger and strange magic, and an Orc being held captive. Once the smoke clears, Simon realizes that he has killed a Highborn Elf, which means that the case he’s working just got a lot more complicated. Simon is a Peacekeeper working for the Commonwealth. His team includes Dwarves, a Fire mage, and—at the insistence of an Elven diplomat and Simon’s own lieutenant—an Elf Ranger called Sylvie Graystorm. Davis plays with motifs familiar to fans of crime fiction and sword-and-sorcery epics, but this pairing makes these tropes feel fresh. The worldbuilding is especially interesting. Without delving too deeply into the history of the universe he’s built, Davis makes it clear that the Commonwealth is a newly formed democratic monarchy replacing an older, more feudal social order. This new government isn’t perfect—Orcs are second-class citizens forced to live in ghettos and on reservations; and the Elves maintain their ancient aristocracy—and these tensions fuel the conflicts that drive the narrative. Like most high fantasy, this is a story about good versus evil, but the dash of political realism adds a distinctive heft. The fact that Simon is half Human and half Elf adds a layer of complexity to his character, and Sylvie Graystorm chafes at the rigidity of traditional Elven culture. Some of the other characters are a bit less well developed, as Davis seems satisfied to work with the racial types defined by Tolkien, but this doesn’t impede the solid storytelling.

Part fantasy, part police procedural, and entirely entertaining.