I’ve enjoyed the Penric and Desdemona series enormously over the past 3 weeks. I will circle back around and review the installments I have not yet reviewed in the new year. I raced through the last 6 and they certainly deserve a reread.
I think my favorite thing about the series is that it is in many ways an investigative procedural – Pen and Des investigate things and get in and out of situations without there being an over-arching antagonist or a need to save the world. Penric is a detective, but he is not concerned as much with justice as with souls. In Knot of Shadows, he and his chaos demon are investigating a death, but not to determine if there was a murder, or who the killer might be. Pen and Des want to know what has happened to the souls, and to anyone impacted by the body’s death. It’s interesting watching his and Desdemona’s process (throughout all the books), particularly after a couple of decades of watching various police procedural shows where justice is the goal.
Knot of Shadows feels a little darker than other books in the series. Not that bad things haven’t happened, but this one has stronger content notes than others. I was worried for a bit that Bujold was going somewhere very dark. It gets very sad, but not exploitatively so. I think every book I’ve read this year has grappled with grief and loss. (I think coping with out global grief.) Penric is called on to clear the wreckage of grief and to avert greater suffering. He and Desdemona stay somewhat apart from the grief happening around them, though not untouched. Thinking back to those police procedurals, Penric and Desdemona solve the mysteries they were asked to solve, but it doesn’t become so personal for them that they are emotionally compromised. They don’t take on the grief as their own. Penric remains compassionate, without making himself the star of the emotional drama. It was lovely.
CN: grief, death, possession by ghost, murder?, accidental death of a child off page, more than one self inflicted death off page, false imprisonment in past, animal death off page, handling of dead bodies, remembering an incident of self harm, greed.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Subterranean Press and NetGalley. This did not affect my opinions.