Mortedant's Enigma: A gloriously twisty fantasy full of mystery, magic and high stakes in this Sunday Times bestselling series
About this ebook
‘I loved it from the first page and would recommend it highly' – John Gwynne on Mortedant's Peril
The dead tell tales. But only Irody Hasp can hear them.
As a master Mortedant, Irody reads the final memories of the deceased. But in the corrupt, tiered city of Elbay, reading the dead's last memories often pays in cabbages, not coin. Scraping by, alongside a rebellious apprentice and a brutal warrior, he’s barely surviving the fringes - until a wealthy aristocrat offers a fortune to solve an impossible locked-room murder.
Thrust from the city's violent depths into high-society politics, Irody stumbles into a web of industrial espionage, ancient secrets, and looming gang warfare. With faceless killers tracking his every step, he must unravel the conspiracy before Elbay explodes.
In a city built on blood, the truth won't set you free. It will get you killed.
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Praise for Mortedant's Peril
‘An engrossing, ingenious story’
- Adrian Tchaikovsky, bestselling author of the Children of Time series
‘This is the murder mystery conspiracy thriller fantasy epic you've been looking for. Wonderful stuff!’
- M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with all the Gifts
‘A baroque romp of squalor and grandeur, horror and humour. Fabulous, frantic and moving’
- The Daily Mail
Mortedant's Peril was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 25/05/2026.
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About the author
RJ Barker lives in Leeds with his wife, son, a collection of questionable taxidermy, odd art, scary music and more books than they can store. He grew up reading whatever he could get his hands on, and has always been 'that one with the book in his pocket'. Having played in rock bands before deciding he was a rubbish musician, RJ returned to his first love: fiction.
RJ is now a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of fantasy fiction. The Bone Ships won the British Fantasy Society's Robert Holdstock Award, The Wounded Kingdom (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins), was nominated for the David Gemmell Award, the Compton Crook Award and the British Fantasy Society's Best Debut and Best Novel awards, and Mortedant's Peril was an instant Sunday Times bestseller.
