“It was not a good meeting?” he enquired in a low voice.
“She tried to shoot Farid, threw three knives at me, and left us locked in a burning warehouse. She is an Alletian agent and she is extremely dangerous.”
“It was not a good meeting.” His tone remained deadpan, but his expression had hardened.

Quick Pitch:

An odd couple detective team were hoping for some rest but when one of their peers goes missing they are sent to the small military town he was last located in to investigate. It once was famous for being a critical war ending location, but the town is still impacted (haunted?!) by it.

But solving it is far from a slam dunk they hoped for. Instead of answers they find dead bodies. Oh, noooooo.

It’s a close knit town but there are several loose threads to make us all conspiracy theorists. Let’s go Sherlock, we need to see why people keep talking about divination & ghosts. Don’t get distracted by the stable boy… or maybe do?

Overall Thoughts:

Things that I loved

Murder mystery with very light magic? It’s like catnip in my TBR.,

The overall tone sort of gave me Robert Jackson Bennett vibes – where I enjoyed visualizing the political schemes scenes. But though there aren’t any big, fantastical moments, it felt more sort of conversationally relatable? Or maybe it was easy to enjoy this story through the FMC’s eyes.,

Hooray for audio – narrator did a great job with a big cast.

Tough love:

Sometimes it’s hard to know when to land the plane. With the key story issue solved shortly after the 1/2 way point, the second half almost felt like an unexpected, elongated story. I still liked how he wrapped it up, pacing wise though, the third quarter could have been tighter.

So yes, this could have been a novella, but honestly, Moxen’s voice shows promise. Definitely worth keeping your eyes on as his catalogue develops.

“Eventually we came to the arid lands of the western plateau, where herds of goat and fat-tailed sheep bleated among the bristly scrub. The rocky outcrops punctuating the landscape and the gravel of the road surface graduated imperceptibly to a red-brown sandstone, and whenever we peaked the low ridges that crinkled the land like a rosemary-scented blanket, the range of Waning Cadence rose blue on the horizon, mountaintops hazed with cloud.”

Beyond the ease of reading I felt immediately upon starting The Redstone Rescue, what stood out to me right away was the sense of real worldbuilding behind characters, settings, and events. I mentioned this in a recent SFINCS review for Ben Galley’s The Weaver and the Wyrm, but no matter how many notebooks bursting with lore crowd a fantasy author’s workspace, it’s never a given that a story will feel lived in. For a secondary world to feel as though it exists beyond the pages of the book, the author must weave the illusion that characters and places keep changing after the point-of-view character leaves a scene. You can have all the granular detail you like, but if your world doesn’t breathe, it’s unlikely to captivate.

The Redstone Rescue does all of this. There’s a smoothness not only to the writing, but to the world, as though you’re not simply reading about the lands Moxon describes, but are peering through a window and observing what’s on the other side. What’s on the other side is enchanting, lively, and compelling. I do note that while Moxon describes Redstone as utopian, I’m unsure that I fully agree. While its tone is lighthearted and fun, the world doesn’t quite fit that model. This is not a  negative, but I note it so that readers can better manage their expectations.

Redstone‘s protagonist, Khatin Amatar, is essentially her world’s equivalent of a detective. Alongside her fellow investigator, Farid, she’s been sent to track down their predecessor–someone who went missing himself while investigating a series of disappearances in a once-contested border town. To uncover what threats lie beneath the seemingly-calm surface of the town, Khatin must reckon not only with the personal motivations of the locals, but with political machinations past and present–old glories and not-quite-forgotten feuds between nations. As a protagonist, Khatin is likeable and entertaining. One of not only her strong suits, but the strong suits of the book, is the playful banter between Khatin and her supporting cast.

Although magic exists in Redstone, here it’s naturalized into the world, and unlike in many magical, secondary worlds, it truly feels naturalized. Readers who prefer a more bombastic fantasy setting may be disappointed, but for those who appreciate a subtle approach, Redstone is worth a look.

My one complaint about Redstone is that I remain unconvinced that its story justifies its length. While the initial setup of the disappearances easily hooked me, as Khatin’s adventures became more focused on heist-like action and subterfuge, I found my attention wandering. A lot of characters are introduced later in the story, and while it’s not difficult to follow, I didn’t feel as deeply connected with them or their motivations as I would have liked. Shaving off just a little of the middle and end would have increased the sense of tension, I think, and would have supported the roller-coaster conclusion that it seems Moxon was aiming for.

That said, it’s clear Moxon is a skilled writer–certainly, his has been some of the cleanest and most engaging prose I’ve encountered in SPFBO so far. I’d recommend this one to fans of fantasy mysteries like Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, K. A. Doore’s The Chronicles of Ghadid, and P.Djéli Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe series. Each shares a desert setting, but beyond that, they’re also tonally similar and combine a mystery premise with an adventure fantasy feel.

Note: My review is of the .epub, while Catherine reviewed the audiobook.