The Tyrant Baru Cormorant

Baru Cormorant has spent fifteen years working inside the Imperial Republic of Falcrest while plotting to bring it down. Now she knows the secret society called the Cancrioth is real, and that she belongs to it.

The Cancrioth hold a weapon called the Kettling. It is a very old hemorrhagic plague, and it would kill hundreds of millions around the globe, guilty and innocent alike. Baru can release it as revenge. The other option is slower and harder: a conspiracy of judges, kings, spies and immortals that bends the world's wealth and two great wars toward one aim, forcing Falcrest to give up its colonies.

Enemies close in on her from every side. Her own mind swings between madness and revelation, and she cannot be sure which one is guiding her choices.

This is the third novel in the Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson, after The Traitor Baru Cormorant and The Monster Baru Cormorant. It is dense, political and bleak, and it is written for readers who have followed the series from the start.