Makk had the misfortune to be born on a day believed to be so unlucky that his parents barely paused long enough to get him tattooed with the outcast mark before dumping him at an orphanage. The stigma of that mark is so strong that before becoming a cop Makk considered joining the House, planet Dib's religious organization, simply because some of the monks wear concealing robes that would hide it. The city of Velon's best detective also grew up in an orphanage and is therefore familiar with their compound when a scholarly monk is found murdered. Almost from the beginning this isn't a typical case. The monk, Orno, is the younger brother of Velon's most notorious criminal. Orno had recently stolen a priceless ancient religious text that no one can read, but it appears to discuss the Culling, when the god known as the Outcast will return and bring about the apocalypse. Then, just to really annoy Makk, he gets saddled with a shiny new detective as a partner. Everyone wants the case solved without any secrets being revealed, but in a world where independent reporters record everything with drones and conspiracy theories are more common than facts, Makk will have difficulty distinguishing the possible from the impossible.

The world of Dib is similar to Earth in many ways but isn't a colony. A lot of the story involves the House, the pantheon it believes in, and their origin myths, although not all of the monks are devout by traditional Earth definitions. Some join the House simply because it's responsible for education and most of Dib's research. Many join because they want to know the secrets that the House famously keeps in their vaults. One such secret might be the mysterious book Orno took from the vaults, but the House leadership actually believes that Orno stole a key of some kind. Another part of the story involves how journalism is handled on Dib, where reporters more closely resemble our social media influencers. Other plot points are fairly standard for a murder mystery on any planet where people attempt to bribe or threaten detectives to influence the outcome one way or the other.

Overall, it's a well written sci-fi detective novel. In the end we may know who done it, but along the way a greater mystery is uncovered and the fate of an entire world may depend upon a man marked as unlucky from the time he was born. Overall, the consensus is four stars on this one, but a lot depends on what direction the next book takes. Reviews of the three narrators were a bit mixed and it was hard to pinpoint the complaints. Everyone seemed to like Gabrielle de Cuir but reviews contradicted each other when it came to the two men or were unclear which man they referred to.