A Divine Murder Mystery: City of Stairs Book Review
Book review of Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs, book one in his Divine Cities series.
What is this book about?
This book mostly takes place in a city called Bulikov, the place where gods used to rule. Back then the city was a marvelous place, but its people also used the gods’ protection and power to oppress others. That is until those gods all got killed, and the oppressors become the oppressed.
Now, Bulikov’s history is censored, any mention of the old gods are considered a criminal act, and its citizens are subjugated by those they used to subjugate back when they still had their gods.
When a historian from outside the city was murdered, Shara Tivani was summoned to Bulikov to solve the murder. Officially she looks like a rather inexperienced young woman sent by Bulikov’s oppressors in order to replace the previous diplomat, but unofficially, she’s one of the world’s best spies, and she has historical ties with the killings of Bulikov’s gods.
As she investigates what’s going on in the city, she realizes that this goes way deeper than just a murder, she finds that perhaps the gods that used to rule the city might not be as dead as they seem…
