What the Dead Believe

About this book

In the canal city of Brindemar, the law rests on one certainty: the dead cannot lie. A trained caller wakes a corpse for a single Last Word, and the Bench takes that word as final. Maret Sollance stopped calling eleven years ago. She keeps tally at a salt-house, sleeps badly, and wants nothing from the Hall of Last Words. Then the Watch drags her back to the slab on a night when no licensed caller can be found, and the murdered shipping factor Julin Draske opens his eyes, looks at nothing, and names his killer. He names her. The word of a corpse cannot be appealed, only outrun. Maret has fifteen days to prove something Brindemar's law forbids anyone to argue: that a dying man can be sincerely, fatally wrong about who is holding the knife.