Three Parts Dead
When the Hidden Schools threw Tara Abernathy out, she fell a thousand feet through wisps of cloud and woke to find herself alive, broken and bleeding, beside the Crack in the World.
First book in the Craft Sequence, though third chronologically.
Featuring necromantic lawyers, badass women taking down an abuser, resurrection of a literal God, vampire pirates, Elayne Kevarian (a non-literal goddess among mortals), shapeshifting gargoyles, an immersive fully-realised fantasy world, allegories for IRL issues, laugh out loud moments… what more could you want?
Published 2012, Tor.com
Summary of Three Parts Dead
(from publisher)
A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.
Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.
Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.
When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.
Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.
A nerdy deep dive into demographics of POV characters in the Craft Sequence.