Witchmark by C. L. Polk

Tor.com Books, June 19, 2018. $15.99 paperback/$9.99 Kindle.
Available for preorder from Amazon.

Cee Polk is an old online friend from my Livejournal days; we've largely fallen out of contact as each of us has moved in and out of science fiction/fantasy fandom in different ways and LJ crumbled. But it's fair to say I've been looking forward to a book from her for over a decade. Even long ago she was the sort of author you could tell was going to do something interesting. And Witchmark does not disappoint.

Its clearest influence is Ursula LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." This is a book about a society which runs itself by taking severe advantage of some of its citizens. That's clear from the beginning, but the theme only develops and grows as the mystery at the heart of the book expands.

It is a mystery, both a murder mystery and a mystery of greater societal systems. Polk's fantasy society is a modernizing one; the tech level approximates the period immediately following World War I. The main country of the book, Aeland, has moved from horse-dominated transportation to a society of bicyclists, and is beginning to be colonized by automobiles. Kingston, the capitol city, is in the process of being electrified. And the country has just won a war, and is preparing for the triumphant return of its soldiers.

Dr. Miles Singer is an army psychiatrist at the Veterans' Hospital. He's treating a group of soldiers who have returned from the war with delusions, and he's the only one who can see that they're more than delusions, a psychiatric and spiritual epidemic growing within returning veterans. He's drawn into a murder investigation when a dying victim specifically seeks him out for his help, and in that is thrown together with Mr. Tristan Hunter, a foreigner who has come to Kingston to investigate troubling problems of his own.

I't not only a mystery, but also a romance, as Miles and Tristan, thrown together by circumstance, grow ever closer. While M/M romance isn't a genre I read very much, it's easy to say this is the best and most-compelling I've seen. Romances of any kind in which the participants respect themselves and each other are rare. It is very, very easy to grasp why Miles and Tristan like and love each other from both directions, and as such it's very emotionally compelling.

Since it's a novel, you won't be surprised to hear that all three mysteries are deeply connected. Miles navigates the quest to understand them all through and around the high political connections of his estranged family. What he finds is enough to shake the foundations of more than one nation.

To find out how, you'll have to read the book. Very highly recommended.