First Watch (Dale Lucas)

First Watch
The Fifth Ward series, Book 1
Dale Lucas
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Mystery
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Humans, dwarves, elves, orcs and more... everyone who comes to Yenara City is looking for something, but only a few manage to find it. For Rem, he wanted a new start and a new life away from his nobleborn father in the north country, but so far all he's found is unemployment, sore feet, and a cell beneath the Fifth Ward watch headquarters - and he barely remembers the drunken brawl that landed him there. When he learns that they're missing a guard, Rem decides to take a chance and ask for a job. Amazingly, the captain agrees to give him a try. Thus Rem finds himself partnered with the dwarf Torval, a partnership already off on the wrong foot because it's Torval's regular partner and friend who is missing. It's clear that nobody thinks Rem has what it takes. That only makes Rem all the more determined to prove everyone wrong... but when the missing guard turns up dead in a canal, the wayward noble realizes just how far over his head he really is.

REVIEW: A police procedural set in a fantasy world, this kind of story could easily fall flat on its face, either trying too hard or simply not trying enough. In this case, it actually works. Something like a pilot episode, Lucas uses Rem's unfamiliarity with Yenara and the job as a way to introduce the reader to the setting and the characters in a way that never quite feels like an infodump, establishing a world of many humanoid races with all the diversity, friction, political complications, and prejudice that entails. Rem is the young idealist, determined to make his own way in the world after a childhood of privilege (and constant belittlement by his father); his decision to ask for a position with the Fifth Ward is borne as much out of that idealism as desperation to find a job. He soon gets some of that idealism knocked out of him, both by the city itself and by his reluctant partner/trainer Torval, who makes no secret of his skepticism about the new hire's suitability for guard work. Rem is no prodigy, either, messing up more than once and getting knocked down repeatedly, figuratively and literally. But he keeps climbing back on his feet, pulled into a murder investigation that leads all across the city, into various dark corners rife with corruption. Torval slowly warms up to his new partner as the two chase numerous clues through numerous complications, eventually revealing his own scarred past and what led him, a mountain dwarf, away from his clan and into the city. The story moves well, with plenty of action and characters who defy easy race- or species-based stereotypes. The case wraps up by the end of the book, though of course there's series potential in the concept and cast, and indeed there are more Fifth Ward books. I found myself enjoying it more than I expected to, and I might even pursue the next book or two. Yenara is the kind of city I wouldn't mind visiting again.

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