“Three Parts Dead”

A Fantastic Fantasy by Max Gladstone

I usually read during my twenty minute work breaks, and I found it more difficult than usual dragging myself back to work while reading Max Gladstone’s Three Parts Dead. Every section seemed to end with a cliffhanger that made me thirsty for a resolution. No wonder this book was one of this year’s Must Read books.

This conglomeration of steampunk, crime and fantasy opens with the death of Kos Everburning, the God of Alt Coulumb. Enter Tara Abernathy and her boss, Elayne Kevarian, both Craftswomen working for Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao to investigate the god’s murder. Then another murder occurs, of a human this time. But could the murders be connected? That’s what the Craftwomen, and the readers of this magical mystery, must find out. The plot always keeps you on your toes, with twists and turns, vampires, living gargoyles, and blacksuits, statue-like servants of Justice. All the characters are suspect. You have to be careful who to trust as events unravel.

Elayne Kevarian is kind of like a Sherlock Holmes who can use magic. She doesn’t always tell Tara what she knows, and she always knows more than she lets on. Tara is in no way a Watson character. She’s more like a Sherlock-in-training. She figures things out more quickly than the other characters. I like her because she’s strong and brilliant, but not so much so that the resolution becomes too clear. Her archenemy – antagonistic, power-hungry craftsman and teacher, Alexander Denovo – is pretty clever, too. Scary clever. A force to be reckoned with. Gladstone’s characters in this book are so life-like that, when I read about the second book in the series (Two Serpents Rise), I was heartbroken that these characters aren’t in the second book. I hope they come back.