A very fun, queer, gothic comedy horror Sherlock Holmes pastiche. The main character, and our story's narrator, is Captain John Wyndham, a trans man recently returned from military service and in need of a living situation in Khelathra-Ven. Half of this ancient city is drowned under the waves and can only be accessed by submersibles which regularly ferry passengers past the towers of dead gods. Wyndham ends up rooming with the consulting sorceress Ms. Shaharazad Haas at 221B Martyrs Walk, and when she is approached by a client who has been blackmailed, Wyndham joins Haas in the investigation. Don't expect a logical or tightly plotted mystery that could reasonably be solved via clues. Do expect lesbian vampires, cursed theater productions, ghosts, necromancers, alternate dimensions, and a bad-tempered landlady (who happens to be a sentient hive of insects inhabiting a rotting corpse). I listened to most of this as an audiobook and enjoyed it, though I had to take breaks every now and then because there are a lot of metanarrative asides ("My editor suggests at this juncture that I describe the scene in more detail...") that I would probably have skimmed if reading the book in print.