Shadow Talker

 Shadow Talker, Sergei Katz, Amazon.com Services LLC, 2020

 

Part 1 of a series, this book takes place on a world where a series of intellectual and athletic games determines a person's profession. James is happy to be assigned to the elite School of Detectives. Finding the School is east, but gaining admittance is much more difficult (you don't just knock on the front door). The sentient School makes it clear that James must solve his first case to stay at the school.

Paired with an enchanted panther and a woman with unique abilities of her own, James must find out who is stealing people's souls. They spread out in the city, looking for clues. A soul cannot survive outside a body indefinitely, so there is a big time constraint included. There is a lot of Sherlock Holmes-style deduction and observation going on. Can the trio find, and stop, the culprit before James gets added to the list of people missing their souls?

This is a really good start to a series, with lots of good writing. It works as an urban fantasy novel, and it works as a detective novel. This will appeal to a lot of people, and it is very much worth reading.