As a mystery novel, I think it hits pretty decently. There's a revolving door of suspects, one murder after another, and keeps you (or at least me) guessing as to who the culprit is till very near the end. I was less sold on it as a fantasy book, seeing as how the world isn't very well-explained. It's basically the opposite of info-dumping, in which we are given barely any information to work with, and what we are given is in the form of words and names and past events that are never (or not until much much later in the book) given any sort of context. I think the world-building could be interesting and good, but it needed more depth to it and history explained to make it so. It almost feels like a second or third book, as things are mentioned and it's assumed that you have any idea what any of it means.

The book is just shy of 450 pages, which is quite a lot, and in this book's case, I'm not sure it needed to be, especially since none of that is spent building the world. Could have used some editing here and there to slim it down some.

Chris can be a bit dull, but at the same time, he's got enough personality to make him somewhat relatable. He seems a bit resentful of having been left in charge of a dying estate, guardian to a younger sister, and living with a whole lot less of comfort than he was previously used to prior to the untimely death of his parents. He's forced to get a job with a deathsniffer, and as you can imagine, those jobs aren't highly prized, but they will pay the bills. He's not too sure of himself in a lot of regards but at the end of the day, really just wants to keep his sister safe.

Olivia strongly smacks of a female Sherlock - her eccentricates, her brassness, her relationship with the police force, her manic phrases followed by blank somewhat depressive episodes, etc. She could amuse me at times, and I liked seeing her soften up slightly by the end of the book, mostly towards Chris.

Not sure I'll continue with the series, as I read some reviews for the next books and I'm not sure they're my cup of tea.