Blind

Shira Calpurnia #3

by Matthew Farrer

The Master of the Blind Tower is dead, and Shira Calpurnia must hunt down the murderer and bring them to justice. Dealing with the hostile astropaths and unravelling a conspiracy, Calpurnia is forced to confront her own prejudices and weakness if she is to solve the crime and restore order.

Read it because
It's another labyrinthine mystery for Shira Calpurnia. Matthew Farrer once again creates a believable and breathing world filled with fascinating characters and a central tale that's sure to surprise you.

Genres: 40k, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery, Crime

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 4, 2006

About the author

Matthew Farrer writes mostly for Black Library. He lives in Australia.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in Enforcer: The Shira Calpurnia Omnibus

It was two more hours of painstaking orders and oaths, seals and counterseals, before the locks on the heavy armoured door of Master Otranto's chamber could be opened.
After that, it took several whole minutes for the astonished onlookers to properly understand the wound on Otranto's corpse, to realise what it was, and to know that this was no death and no possession. This was murder.

The Bastion Psykana, informally known as the Blind Tower or the Witchroost, is an Astropathic station and relay beacon of the Imperium located in the Hydraphur System, segmentum fortress where the mighty Imperial warfleets dock, repair, rearm and depart in an endless cycle of war.

The staff crashed into the floor again. Calpurnia did not flinch.
'Declare to the Arbites your name.'
'Shira Calpurnia Lucina.' She had been through enough self-denunciation sessions that she no longer had to stop herself from reciting her rank. It had been a close thing, those first few times.
The staff crashed.
'Declare to the Arbites the Emperor's accusations against you.'

The Bastion burns with the invisible psyker-light of its astropaths, specially-trained psychic servant of the Imperium belonging to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, capable of sending and receiving psychic messages across interstellar space, hated and needed at the same time by the rest of Humanity.

Dast was already banging his staff on the door. Over the noise of the locks and the opening mechanisms, Orovene told her, 'A crime against the Adeptus, Calpurnia. It is a matter of law. Someone has murdered the Master of the Bastion Psykana. We're going to go aboard and find someone who can tell us who it was.'

It rings with the silent warp-music of their choirs, endlessly monitoring communications in its area of space.

'Nothing matters to me, except your obedience. Drop your weapons and submit yourselves to judgement. Don't doubt that that's an order.'
There was a moment's silence. Then the sound of a shotgun being cocked as the chastener loaded an Executioner shell. One rioter went down on one knee, another following suit. Calpurnia looked at them and nodded, and that was all it needed for half a dozen more to kneel.

Shira Calpurnia Lucina, scion of a noble family from Ultramar and former Arbitor Senioris of the Imperial Grand Precinct of Hydraphur, failed in her duty to preside and judge on the inheritance of an Imperial Rogue Trader Charter when the hearing on Selena Secundus failed and the very Court of the Arbites broke in bloodshed.

'For the purposes of anyone outside these precinct chambers,' Dast said, 'Calpurnia is still an arbiter senioris, and we proceed by her grace and her authority. In practice, her authority ends with me until such time as I consider the investigation concluded.'
The feeling in Calpurnia's guts took a new twist, and she realised that it was fear.

She is preparing for her upcoming trial when the unexpected happens: the Master of the Blind Tower is murdered, and Shira Calpurnia, the only available officer at hand to investigate, is temporarily given back her rank and tasked with hunting down the killer and bring him to justice.

Rede shivered. 'The killing had a lot of the astropaths spooked to begin with.'
'They're not the only ones,' said Calpurnia darkly, pushing back from the table. 'I'm the one who fought her way in here through an ignorant pack of rioters who wanted to hijack her ship and escape off-station.'
Rede didn't answer. She just scowled and stared at her boots.

Dealing with hostile astropaths, a strict master chastener keeping her on leash, the political intrigues and conspiracies of the Tower, the threat of the misterious assassin ready to strike again, and the spirit-haze created by the psykers fogging minds and drenching everything inside the station, Calpurnia is forced to confront her own prejudices and weakness if she is going to solve the crime, restore order on the Bastion Psykana, and redeem herself in one last chance to salvage the pieces of her broken honor, reputation, career and life.

She grunted and kept walking. The truth was that she was nonplussed by the Arbites, by their tumultuous arrival and by their current seclusion. Weren't all Arbites thugs and idiots? Brainann and that detective who fancied herself so secret, certainly were. She hoped the investigation wouldn't make any trouble. Sacredsteel was an astropath of the first order, and it was time she had a rank that reflected it.

The third and final book in Matthew Ferrer's Shira Calpurnia series is a page turning locked room murder mistery set in an isolated deep space station, giving at the same time lots of insights about imperial arbites, astropaths, psykers and much more with enough detailed world-building to fill a Dark Heresy handbook or any other kind of W40K related RPG guide.

She didn't recognise the badges of rank on Calpurnia's shoulders, but they looked like ones that would take until about Ylante's own age to earn. Three scar-lines ran up from her eye into the woman's unruly dark-blonde hair. The scars themselves were old, just neat lines, but the skin around them looked red and sore as if from constant rubbing

The multitude of characters, and narration shifting between their different points of view, made this read a not easy one at all because of its complexity, with the puzzle pieces coming together only in the end and the murderer identity revealed at last, but I just enjoyed every moment of it and still cannot imagine a better ending to this trilogy, a real hidden gem that left me craving for more.

No. She was in her role by judgement of the Adeptus Arbites, which was the judgement of the Lex Imperia and therefore of Him on Earth. Her duty was not to indulge her pride and her fantasies of command; her duty was to serve the law, whatever it required of her. Her duty would not find her wanting.

And that unexpected Commissar Cain propaganda poster coss-series hilarious reference totally made my day.

Ylante lay still, staring past Calpurnia in silence.
'Do you still suspect me?' she asked after a moment.
'No,' said Calpurnia. 'By rights I shouldn't reassure you, but no, I don't. I do think that the master-servant pairing in the scryes was you and Otranto, but you didn't kill him.'
'I don't understand.'
'That's all right,' said Calpurnia, 'I do. You'll excuse me. I've got work to do.'

Highly recommended to everyone interested into taking a detailed look into Warhammer 40000 and its backstage, but fans of more recent Warhammer Crime ongoing series of novels should enjoy it too.

Cerebrally, rationally, Calpurnia knew where the fear had come from. It was the memory of the hearing at Selena Secundus, the ugly shrapnel-bomb of a disaster that she had so cheerfully walked into, so full of her own prowess - Shira Calpurnia, the fierce new arbiter general, the woman who'd broken the conspiracy dogging the Mass of Balronas, and foiled the escape of Ghammo Stroon, what could go wrong?

Just stay away from here if you are looking for your usual bolter-porn dose of Space Marines purging xenos, mutants, and heretics.

My place is where my duty is. My achievements are what my duty provides. My life is what my duty makes it. I am Shira Calpurnia Lucina of Ultramar and I will do my duty with all my heart, I am Shira Calpurnia, I am… I…
I am not this woman.
.

[Dawie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good conclusion the Calpurnia series, or was it concluded? I feel the pages after the epilogue could’ve been used better to let us know if she survives her trial maybe rather than just excerpts from vague books that we are supposed to make our own story up with. I loved this series as it not only gave us the workings of the Adeptus Arbites, but took deeper looks into other factions within the Imperium too. Each book had it’s own focal point on a faction at least book one gave us the Arbites, book two the Rogue Traders, that alone has helped me make the decision that i want to pursue more rogue Trader focused novels…, and book 3 gave us the hierarchy of the Psycana, it was great. Educative and fun, while at times maybe a little bit confusing. I feel there were may have been a bit too many view points for a novel of this length, but overal I was happy to have been able to read this series. Who knows, maybe we see Calpurnia back in action soon again?

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars

Really liked this one. It's definitely not the arc I would have anticipated for Shira from the first book, but I did like that even in the grim darkness of the far future she got to go out on her own personal version of a high note.

[Adrian Dumitru · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope to read more books about here in the future!

[grosbeak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The mystery was a little bit all over the place. (I don't think Farrer can really write novels: Enforcer worked because the individual episodes were able to be strung together just enough as building toward an ongoing overarching plot; Legacy had exactly the problem of being too episodic; here we have at least unity of place (and gosh it's a fun, weird, evocative place) and a clear murder mystery/kill on the loose problem, but there are too many characters for such a slight novel, and the action and perspective jump too much. What more or less saves it is Calpurnia's crisis of faith/coming to terms with herself and her duty.

[Lohmatii · Rating 3 out of 5]

Красивое и атмосферное описание быта адептус астра телепатика. Интригующая завязка сюжета.
На этом плюсы, пожалуй, заканчиваются.
Сюжет рудиментарный.
Арбитры ходят кругами и ничего не делают. Ни намека на попытку изобразить расследование, собрать улики, организовать допросы, хоть что-то. Впрочем, они буквально гении сыска на фоне инквизиции, определяющей виновных по принципу "с тобой говорили арбитры - значит это ты".

[Erik Sapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery and Shira (once she stops acting a fool) are great. What ruins this book is how stupid and childish Dast is.

He knows (or should know) he does not have the skills or knowledge to actually lead the investigation. If he had any brains at all, he would have done his duty (meaning act in a way that solves the mission), stepped back, and let Shira do her job. Instead, he plays all big and bad - and fails miserably in any kind of investigation. It’s only when he is taken out of the picture (and Shira can actually act) that everything gets resolved. Anyone but Shira would have stood back, let him “lead,” watched him fail, and let him earn his just desserts. Maybe then he would learn a lesson.

[David Matteri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how this third installment in the series returns to Calpurnia and shows more of her inner struggles as she attempts to solve a murder onboard a mysterious and frightening station full of pyskers. It has good rising action and creepy atmosphere, but the constantly shifting POV made it hard for me to keep track of the characters and the plot at times. Still worth a read if you're a fan of the grim-dark universe.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat weak murder mystery story, saved by its foreboding atmosphere and its ruminations on guilt as Shira must deal with what is almost certainly her final case not as a law enforcement officer, but as a prisoner awaiting judgement. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Patrick Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I actually finished this over a week ago and would probably have something better to say if I had reviewed it then. But I liked it. Gonna keep it around a few years until I've forgotten the details then read it again.

[John Somers · Rating 3 out of 5]

10/20.

[Ulzeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite boring.

[Rosťa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Třetí díl ze ságy o Shiře Calpurnii. Zde je víc než kdekoliv předtím v sérii na škodu autorova neschopnost malebně popsat a vykreslit situace a místa v příběhu, protože ten se odehrává na stanici adepta telephatica. To je místo velice odlišné od imperiální architektury a podle autorova líčení je jen velmi těžké si barvitě představit jak taková stanice vypadala.

Už od počátku vyprávění je jasné, že zápletka stojí na jediném "chytáku" a čtenář de facto jen čeká, co to nakonec bude. V náznaku se zde objevují vnadičky na vedlejší příběhové linie, které by mohly zhušťovat zápletku, ale jde jen o snahu natáhnout o trochu příběh a dodat mu glanc.

V neposlední řadě mi vadily buď chyby v překladu nebo místy neumělost autora, kdy jsem nebyl s to pochopit, o čem se ve větě hovoří. Samotné pasáže z duše psykerů jsou opravdu žalostné.

Kniha je i přes uměle nastavovanou délku vcelku krátká, zápletka nikterak hluboká. Dvě hvězdy jsou pro fandy Warhammeru 40K (a Calpurnie), pro zbytek čtenářské obce je to spíše jedna.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first two in the series. But still an enjoyable read.