The inexplicables

The Inexplicables is the fifth novel in Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century, returning to the poisoned, walled-off Seattle first mapped in Boneshaker. Its protagonist is Rector Sherman, a teenage orphan and addict of the drug 'sap' refined from the city's toxic Blight gas, whose guilt over a missing friend drives him back inside the deadly walls.

Inside, Rector finds a fragile society of survivors contending with the shambling undead, rival smuggling operations exploiting the sap trade, and mysterious large creatures moving through the gas. Priest ties the book back to earlier cast members while using Rector's outsider view to expose how the walled city actually runs, blending zombie horror with steampunk texture and a coming-of-age spine.

Grittier and more claustrophobic than the road-and-river entries around it, The Inexplicables sharpens the series' central anxieties about addiction and exploitation. It works best read after Boneshaker.