Eden Underhill

Kende Váryszegi has the best job in Gyöngyvár: running along limestone roofs, basking in the sun, and delivering parcel notes between friendly neighbors. But peace vanishes when an armada of privateer dreadnoughts chokes the canals, demanding the surrender of the entire city before twilight. Gyöngyvár’s only salvation lies in its forgotten spires—ancient relay towers fitted with sun-prisms capable of throwing impenetrable hard-light shields over the bay. The city watch is pinned down, the bridges are barricaded, and the only person nimble enough to leap across the chimney-tops with the missing focusing crystals is Kende. With nothing but his leather boots, a flask of tea, and a very grumpy falcon, he must race the clock to set the city aglow.

In the verdant highland valleys of the Oued-Bara Confederation, peace rests on shared summer pastures and the steady rhythms of the cheese press. Stout, genial cellar-master Mounkoro Danzoui desires nothing more than cool limestone vaults, the honest crusting of goat milk rinds, and the peaceful company of his stubborn donkey, Gazelle. But when Mounkoro steps up to split the five-hundred-pound champion cheese wheel at the annual Solstice banquet, his iron wire strikes solid metal: the sacred silver chalice of the neighboring valley, encased in pristine cured curd. With rival canton herders reaching for stave clubs and an innocent young herdsman facing exile, Mounkoro must rely on pure cheese science—spore blooming patterns, brine penetration, milk fat ratios, and chisel marks on wooden presses—to prove the crime occurred miles away in an abandoned mountain vault. Each 8-chapter investigation brings a cozy community puzzle, fair-play forensic deductions, and the unraveling of a conspiracy threatening generations of highland peace.