Review: The Mortal Word

The Mortal Word 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

A corrupt countess
A spy in danger
And an assassin at large

The fifth title in Genevieve Cogman's witty and wonderful Invisible Library series, The Mortal Word is a rollicking literary adventure.

Peace talks are always tricky, especially when a key diplomat gets stabbed. This rudely interrupts a top-secret summit between the warring dragons and Fae. As a neutral party, Librarian-spy Irene is summoned to investigate. She must head to a version of 1890s Paris, with her assistant Kai and her detective friend Vale, where these talks are fracturing. Here, she must get to the bottom of the attack – before either the peace negotiations or the city go up in flames.

Suspicions fly thick and fast and Irene soon finds herself in the seedy depths of the Parisian underworld. She’s on the trail of a notoriously warlike Fae, the Blood Countess. However, the evidence against the Countess is circumstantial. Could the killer be a member of the Library itself?

My favourite series is baaaacccck with a new book! I LOVE this series, and I say it every time but it's true. I anticipate each book, and get super excited for them and then sit and binge read the new one when it comes out. It never disappoints me, it's a series that is consistently strong in everything, and gets better and better. You have no idea how stoked I was that I got to read this when I got back from Paris! 

The opening? Well in this episode of "worlds in this series I'd like to spend more time in" we find ourselves in the dark and dim Germanic world going after witches. I'm sure you can guess what happened to Irene. I have to say I could picture the entire scene so clearly and I was chuckling away...but also signing in contentment to be back in this series and thoroughly pulled back in to the world. 

I love how Cogman creates such intriguing and fun openings that pull you in...then dives straight in tot he plot of the story. This time round we've got a good old murder mystery set against the backdrop of a Paris that's dealing with a huge anarchist threat and both the Fae and the Dragons are involved. 

I loved how Cogman built up this Paris around you, setting an atmospheric scene that enveloped you and took you away from the real world. I loved the Countess and the mythology behind her, I was kicking myself for not figuring out who she was sooner. I also enjoyed getting to see equal amounts of Fae and dragons, and the Fae had interesting archetypes to follow too! 

We meet Mu Dan in this book, she's the dragon investigator and I loved her even though I was lowkey suspicious of her at one point! I was so here for the team up between her and Irene, and I'm really hoping we get to see them working together again! We also get to see a tonne more of Vale this book, and he has a mini team up with Kai. I was actually a bit sad we didn't get more of the two of them working together, but Vale is definitely at his best! 

Of course, we also have Silver too. Before he was revealed I was sitting there like "don't say it, don't say it...damn". My issue with his character is that I so badly want to hate him, but I oddly kind of love his character and I really loved getting to see him and spend more time with him in this book, and see him interact some more with Irene, Vale and Kai. 

Cogman delivers another excellent instalment in this series, with a steady pace that brilliantly builds up the plot and brings more and more elements and clues and red herrings in to it, and keeps you guessing as the pace builds up to the final few chapters. I loved the murder mystery, Poirot kind of feel to this one, and all the suspects and clues thrown at us, and I was coming up with some crazy theories....and of course I was wrong. But this book also switches things up a bit with the series, as we have the creation of the Embassy that Irene is going to be working at. I am so intrigued to see how things are going to change, and what kind of challenges Irene is going to face through this new development!