Thank you to NetGalley, Mark A. Latham, and Orbit Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

I was hesitant at the start of the book with all the gore descriptions but I kept going. I’m glad that I did. The main characters Holt, Enelda, and Iveta drew me into the story. I just had to know what was going to happen next. Enelda is my favorite character. I love how intelligent, calm, and sassy she is. I need book 2 now. I want to know what’s next for these characters. I’m not sure what was missing with this one. Maybe more information was needed to understand the creatures that plague this world. I also would have loved more details on Lady Aenya more out of curiosity than anything. Please check TW.

70% Miss Marple, with her cleverness, her understanding of human nature, and her sweetness; 30% Sherlock Holmes with his temper, his moral outrage and his ruthlessness. Enelda, a retired Vigilant, is called from her retirement in a tower in the dark woods to help solve a slew of kidnappings of young children — well, mostly the son of a neighboring kingdom held hostage to ensure a peace — and does so with all the crotchety grace you’d expect. Between religious zealotry, corrupt officials, useless nobles, and demonic forces lurking in the woods … Enelda finds herself in need of help.

Enter Hawley, a man with too much anger and too many morals, a strong sense of justice and all the subtlety of a drunken bear. He’s brave, bold, brash, reckless and kind. He’s very much a paladin in a world that doesn’t think they need one.

Honestly, this story was just a delight to read. The characters are all well drawn, the world feels eal, and there are no easy answers. Hawley enters into a fight without thinking and gets hurt; he mouths off to someone and gets beaten for it. He faces the consequences of his actions, which is refreshing. He’s a good guy trying to do the right thing, and his grievances tend to be justified.

It’s not so much a pair of adventurers as it is a student and teacher relationship, with Enelda in her 70s and Hawley looking for someone to tell him what to do because he keeps making mistakes when left on his own. Enelda isn’t looking for a student, but Hawley is all she has to lean on, and the only person she can trust. They have a solid chemistry even if there is a bit of hand waving at some of Enelda’s leaps of understanding as she figures things out without any way for the reader to have known them.

I am very much looking forward to the next book in this series. If this is Enelda retired, I can’t wait to see what she’s like when she’s taken up her duties again. Thank you so very much to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC!

So let me just say that I REALLY liked this book! I am not, in general, a fan of mysteries. But here I was, totally captivated by this medieval whodunit. So many twists and turns, I was second, even third guessing myself every other page it felt like. Certain I knew who was to blame and then dismissing them only to circle back and accuse them again. Hawley and I had that in common, I guess.

Speaking of Holt Hawley, he's our main leading man. A pariah of a soldier, Hawley seems to be bad luck personified. His fellow soldiers seem to either die under his command or try to kill him themselves. His journey felt a lot like the emotional heaviness I picked up on when reading Wolverine comics back in the day. That heaviness, that burden that comes from knowing what you're good at and what you're good at is killing. But he is also fiercely protective of those he takes into his care.

Which brings us to the main character of the book, the last Vigilant, Enelda Drake. Enelda, the last of her order, has lived in exile for decades. She has had little to do with the outside world and now she's being drawn back into it because children are going missing and no one seems to know why. Her relationship with Hawley is fun to read as it gives off vibes of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. I really enjoyed watching their friendship develop of the course of the book.

The world building is incredible in its detail. Actually, that might be the only thing i didn't like. I didn't hate it, but trying to figure out dates and seasons, probably more than I really needed to, did take me out of the book for minute.

Overall, I thought this was a well crafted story and look forward to the next installment. In the meantime, I may have to check out some of Mr. Latham's other works.
I'd like to give a special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-copy of this book. I was under no obligation to provide a review and the thoughts contained herein are my own.

A really great adventure involving a sergeant, Hawley, who searches for and locates a member of an ancient order that solves mysteries with the use of magic., the Vigilants. Vigilant Enelda Drake has lived away from society but returns to civilization to help solve the disappearances of children. I really enjoyed the characters and their adventures. Well written and much enjoyed! I see there is going to be another
book. I’m very excited!

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Thank you to Orbit Books for providing me with an ARC of this book!
Holt Hawley is the name of the MMC, a military man with a dark past and relatively simple attitude. Enelda Drake is the name of the Last Vigilant that Hawley discovers. She provides harsh criticism of the society described in the book, as well as a cranky attitude and ominous commentary. Together, they take on angels, demons, and systemic corruption while solving the mystery of disappearing children and finding whomever may be responsible. Reading about the dissonance between science and magic was interesting, though I wish there had been more magic involved.
The action took a while to pick up, and I wasn't fully immersed in the story until about the 80% mark. I did, however, appreciate the criticisms about what roles women are forced to play in society and that things seem to be moving in a better direction at the end of the book.
Good book, but most likely won't read again.

Fantastic debut. I loved everything about this book. Looking forward to more from this author. Great world building, lore and characters. Everything I like in a fantasy book. Highly recommend, this is a great new voice.

This was a well-written story- a skilled woven combination of mystery and low-fantasy. If I have to best describe the series, it would be a combination of two of Orbit's well regarded completed series: The Pariah by Anthony Ryan and The Empire of the Wolf by Richard Swan. There exists a great mystery in the midst of a conspiracy, set in a medieval England-ish setting with some extents of magic. The mystery involves the disappearance of children, most notably the young ward of a neighboring kingdom (think, if Theon Greyjoy at the age of a pre-teen had went missing in Winterfell and the diplomatic issues between the Starks/Greyjoys)

With the characters- there is a Holmes and Watson type dynamics. The 'Watson' is the hotheaded sergeant Holt Hawley, one with a rough background and a jarring action that caused him to be viewed as a disgrace or pariah. The 'Holmes', though, is the more unique character to this- being an elderly woman living out in a cottage in the middle of the woods with her pet raven, Bartholomew. It's interesting seeing an elderly woman, even more so giving her the secondary point of view (extremely rare in fantasy genres). She quickly gained my interest, and her knowledge and logical framework makes her one to enjoy reading about. There are various other supporting and side characters involved in the mystery were interesting, some of them bad dudes without involvement, others being bad dudes that did had involvement.

The overall plot was relatively slow, I won't sugarcoat that, but it was very interesting and set up well. Just don't expect some dynamic action packed 600 pages (oh there's some terrific action, readers will know what scene I'm mostly talking about), but rather plenty of investigation and stealthy maneuvers.

Overall, this was good, a 4/5 star read, likely in the upper half of my 2025 reads!

Thanks Mark! Now a second book from this publisher, that most recently I could put down!

a richly woven tale of redemption, magic, and adventure, with great dialogue between the two main characters on a child mystery. Full of intrigue, mystery, swords and magical, sure to make you beg for more.

Review: This was good from the get go. High action coupled with great characterization. Ignore the cover art as it in no way reflects Hawley.

This is a great mystery novel, and should have been populated within that genre. An ingeneous approach to couple both fantasy and mystery into a complete whole. The merging of the two is flawless and takes you down so many whodunnit roads, that you question your choices when new evidence is revealed.

I loved this book and you will too.

I received this ARC for an honest review.

4.8/5

This book really surprised me in the best way, as I wasn't expecting such a mystery/crime solving element to be so prevalent. It makes me think of Empire of Exiles with the similar "solving mysteries in a fantasy world" vibe, and for me personally that works really well and creates a very fresh story in the genre. I really enjoyed the searching for clues and and investigative conversations, it kept me asking questions the whole time. The writing is also very well done, and has the perfect voice for this kind of story.

The pacing was very slow throughout, and for some people I think that would be a deal breaker. I found it very satisfying given the plot, but there were moments where I also felt the weight of time passing. It's a pretty minute complaint considering how much of the story works very well. Overall I'm very impressed!

I like to thank NetGalley for the chance to read.

Maybe I'm not in the right headset for this, but I'm not really feeling the ex-soldier and the ancient mage angle. I would have liked someone with more snark, more Holmes in a Sherlock Holmes aspect. I made it 20% into it and mostly, it just seems to be one of those you either gel with the two of them working together or not. I wasn't connecting with it and I didn't feel the need to sit along.

This was interesting in that this book was clearly inspired by the traditional fantasy tropes (plucky young noblewoman, ancient order of magic that’s now almost forgotten, down on his luck soldier, evil spirits rising etc) it also has some of the modern trends and some twists that I think audiences will enjoy.

The tale is mostly told through the eyes of Sergeant Hawley but the main character is arguably Enelda (a vigilant and part of that ancient order of magic I mentioned earlier). The Vigilants magic is primarily manifested as augmented powers of observation and deduction (think of it as like Sherlock Holmes) which I haven't come across too often. Enelda is also a elderly woman which is also kind of unique.

Anyways what follows contains a lot of mystery, adventure, and action that I think readers will enjoy. Also, thankfully, it ends in a appropriate place with no cliffhanger but room for more stories to be told. Recommended.

Set in a world where magic is forgotten, monsters lurk in the dark woods, and honorable soldiers are few, this utterly gripping epic fantasy tells the story of two flawed humans, an out-of-practice wizard and a hot-headed sargent, who are thrust into the heart of a mystery that threatens to unravel their kingdom's fragile peace.

I had a ton of fun with this book. A very interesting mystery told through the fantasy lens. There were plenty of classical tropes in this but with a modern twist which I think was the point. I loved this one and cannot wait for the next installment:)

Classic fantasy, but written for a modern audience. Even the cover looks like a fantasy book you might have come across 20 or 30 years ago. I hope the series continues to be a love letter to classic fantasy.

Children have been going missing, but up to now, these have been children of low birth so little has been done. Now, however, the boy of a powerful noble has disappeared and so a band of soldiers is sent to seek out the last of the old Vigilants, an ancient order capable of performing acts of magic, the only one believed to be capable of resolving this mystery. The commander of these soldiers, Sargent Hawley, is a rarity, achieving his rank not by birth but in deed, but he has his own demons haunting him as well. After some issues with his soldiers, Hawley, alone, finds this elder Vigilant; only he is a she and Vigilant Enelda Drake is quite the character. The two become a most unusual team to investigate these disappearances. The book starts somewhat slowly, but the world-building and character development are delivered in easy to read prose helping to acclimate readers to the players and setting for this story. A tale of power hungry nobles and religious zelots and intrigues and machinations commences. Though there is little epic level battle, military or magical, beyond a duel or minor scrimmage, there are suggestions that this may yet come in the future of the very promising series that begins with this book. I found this to be an interesting read and look forward to seeing what comes next for Hawley and Enelda.
I received access to this eARC thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Orbit Books) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

☆ Fun Factor 2/5 (It's really slow from beginning to end)
☆ Writing Style 5/5
☆ Characters 4/5
☆ Plot 4/5 (Despite the very fantasy cover, this is a murder/conspiracy mystery novel in a fantasy setting)
☆ Setting 2/5
☆ Feels 1/5
☆ Spiciness 1/5 (mild sexual references)
☆ Gore 3/5 (torture, whipping, dismemberment, monster mayhem)

If this were a movie it'd be rated: R for mild sexual situations, violence, body horror, disturbing imagery, dismemberment, murder, blood

☆FOR FANS OF: The Justice of Kings or just the idea of a mystery set in a fantasy world

Ultimate verdict: ☆☆☆☆/5

☆☆☆Best Character Award goes to:☆☆☆ Vigilant Enelda Drake was a very unconventional choice for a secondary protagonist: an old woman seemingly retired from her Order of "necromancers". The mentor-mentee relationship between Enelda and Hawley paid off for me.

Review: A very slow start to a potentially great series

The very Wheel of Time inspired looking cover fooled me into thinking I was going to get an epic fantasy with wizards, elves, dragons, dwarves and so on. That's not what this actually is. This is actually a lot more akin to Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf trilogy (also published by Orbit). Like Empire of the Wolf, this is a series of slowly trickling details through a lot of investigative work: conversations, digging through old logs, gradually piecing together what's going on. If you're on board with that idea, you'll have a lot to like here. Our two investigators are Holt Hawley, a struggling, hot headed Sargeant who finds himself displaced from his company early on in the books and Vigilant Enelda "Nell" Drake, a more or less retired member of of a sacred order called the Vigilants who once held great sway in the world and have now become disgraced. Enelda's the brains and Hawley's the brawn as they travel together to solve the mystery of why so many children are disappearing. There's more to what's happening than meets the eye.

There's promise here for a larger series to expand on revelations learned in the back quarter of the novel. It was slower moving than I liked personally, but for those of you that really love to spend a lot of time getting to know your characters before the plot gets going good, this might be for you.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this early copy in exchange for my honest review!