If I could give this book 6 stars I would. This review is going to be kinda lame because it's just going to be me absolutely hyping this book up.

To start, the characters were fantastic. I feel deeply attached to Krona and Thibaut. I need them to have more shared page time in book 2 because their dynamic is so excellent.

The different POV and time shifts were delivered masterfully. At no point was I dreading reading from a character's perspective (even the villain POV was so so so good examining their motives and their descent into evil).

The plot and the mystery were also amazing. I had so much fun trying to figure out what was going on and predicting how the book was going to end. All the reveals felt perfectly timed - each new piece of information had me thinking about the mystery in a new way that kept me engaged but made it hard to predict the ending.

My one small critique is that we seemed to have a lot of sympathy for the Regulators who are just cops. This seems to be a chronic problem i have with murder mysteries; we are often left rooting for the good cop who is trying to make the most of an unjust system. And by rooting for that good cop, we should root for liberalist reform of the system instead of questioning why policing is necessary in the first place. As this is book 1 in a series, I am curious how this will develop. We have already seen Krona express some doubts about her role as a Regulator so I hope we interrogate those doubts further in the next books. Especially since the villains in this book did have really interesting motives that challenged the power dynamics of the society.

Anyways, I went immediately into book 2 so thats how you KNOW it's good.

Edit to add: the use of religion in this book was so interesting. I really enjoyed the creation story about how and why these humans ended up in this valley closed off from the rest of the world.