Knife Sworn

Mazarkis William’s debut novel, The Emperor’s Knife, was praised for its exotic settings, gripping intrigue, and vivid, full-blooded characters. Now Williams returns to the sumptuous palaces and treacherous back alleys of the Cerani Empire, where intrigue, passion, and dangerous magic threaten the very soul of a newly-crowned emperor. After spending most of his life in captivity and solitude, Sarmin now sits upon the Petal Throne of Cerana. But his reign is an uneasy one. Ambitious generals and restless soldiers want war at any cost. An insidious foreign religion stirs fear among the people and the court. And the emperor’s own heart is torn between two very different women: Mesema, a Windreader princess of the northern plains, and Grada, a lowborn untouchable with whom Sarmin shares a unique bond. A natural-born mage, Sarmin also carries within him a throng of bodiless spirits whose conflicting memories and desires force him to wage a private battle for his sanity. In times past, a royal assassin known as the Emperor’s Knife served as the keen edge of justice, defending the throne from any and all menaces, but the last Knife has perished and his successor has yet to be named. For his own safety, and that of the empire, Sarmin must choose his own loyal death-dealer . . . .but upon whom can be he bestow the bloody burden of the Knife-Sworn?

After spending most of his life in captivity, Sarmin now sits upon the Throne of Cerana. But his reign is an uneasy one. And the emperor’s own heart is torn between two very different women: Mesema, a Windreader princess, and Grada, a lowborn untouchable with whom Sarmin shares a unique bond. In times past, a royal assassin known as the Emperor’s Knife served to defend the throne from menace, but the last Knife has perished and his successor has yet to be named. Sarmin must choose his own loyal death-dealer . . . but upon whom can be he bestow the burden of the Knife-Sworn?

A New York City police lieutenant is facing trial for attempted murder of a prostitute he shot while off duty. The Police Department has proclaimed him a hero who justly defended himself when he was attacked by two hookers with a knife. He is being prosecuted by a young Manhattan assistant D.A. newly assigned the case for trial. The shooting happened four years earlier, when the prosecutor was still in law school, and no one in the D.A.s Office has brought it to trial in all that time. It falls to him to try to penetrate the cover-up and prove that the police framed the two hookers with phony robbery charges and planted a knife at the scene to protect the lieutenant. This would present a daunting challenge for even a veteran trial advocate, much less a lawyer of limited experience. Reminiscent of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosis account of the Charlie Manson case in "Helter Skelter," "Flake" is as real as a true-crime story can get. You the reader sit at the prosecutors table in the Manhattan courthouse as the young but resourceful prosecutor takes on the challenge of going up "against" the police, usually a prosecutors ally in battling crime. You are in on his stratagems - indeed his very thoughts - as he engages in courtroom combat against the cop and his highly experienced defense lawyer. Woven throughout are connections to the Watergate scandal, the N.Y.C. Knapp Commission investigation into police corruption, the shameful Kitty Genovese episode which led to New York being labeled a city of people who didnt care. With a mid-1970s Manhattan backdrop, "Flake" grapples with the centuries-old quandary which continues to challenge our criminal justice system and our society as a whole: Whopolices the police?