Rick Riordan's Reviews > The Justice of Kings

There's nothing quite like reading a great fantasy trilogy, and it's been a while since I've read one as satisfying as Empire of the Wolf. Having finished all three volumes, I'd highly recommend it for its action, character work, and timely themes.

Welcome to the Empire of the Wolf, or the Sovan Empire, a military powerhouse that has been expanding for generations, violently absorbing and assimilating its neighboring countries, until it has become an unwieldy conglomeration of cultures, united by the imperial legions and the Common Law of the emperor.

Our protagonist is Helena Sedanka, a street orphan who has risen through wits and luck to become the protege and secretary to Sir Konrad Vonvalt, one of the emperor's traveling justices. It is Vonvalt's job to make a circuit through the hinterlands of the empire, dispensing justice as needed and making sure the Common Law is observed.

Both Vonvalt and Helena are products of the empire's most recent wars -- Vonvalt a retired veteran, Helena a homeless orphan from the aftermath -- and both have mixed feelings about the Empire. However, Vonvalt believes strongly in the Common Law, which strives to treat all citizens with fairness and justice. This, he believes, is a good enough byproduct to justify the empire's existence, despite its many bloody wars. To do his job, he has many tools at his disposal, including the Emperor's Voice, which can compel others to do his will or speak the truth, and the ability to raise dead spirits (under certain conditions) to get testimony from them. Vonvalt and Helena have a hard life, always on the move, but they feel their job is important.

When a new threat rises, however, in the form of a zealous priest who wants all legal power returned to the Sovan Church, Vonvalt and Helena become entangled in intrigues that could bring down the empire. They must decide where they stand, what they want, and what they are willing to fight for.

The world-building here is first rate and easy to immerse oneself in. The first volume is a tightly constructed procedural mystery wrapped into a fantasy: Who killed a minor noblewoman in a small frontier city? But it quickly expands into a political thriller with huge stakes and more than a touch of magic.

In the second two volumes, the stakes get increasingly bigger, the magic gets more prominent, and the scope of the action will take us from the hinterlands to the imperial capital to the countries outside Sova. It's an ambitious trilogy, but it works because it keeps its focus on our central cast, which you will come to love. As with all great epics, this one was hard to say goodbye to! Highly recommended if fantasy is your jam with a healthy dose of political intrigue and mystery.