Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam

Anji has just killed the king and she is now the most wanted person in the entire kingdom. So what does she do? She stops at the first bar she finds and gets good and drunk, she probably deserves it, she has been running for days now. Unfortunately, that's when The Hawk member of the famed group of bounty hunters, The Menagerie, finds her. The Hawk knocks her out and when Anji comes through finally she's at a camp with The Hawk. Angry at being caught and even more angered by The Hawk's attitude Anji is desperate to escape even more so when The Lynx shows up, and instead of welcoming him The Hawk kills him. Confused and now terrified Anji will be dragged across half of the Kingdom by a woman who is less the hero the songs have made her out to be and more a bloodthirsty killer. 

What a ride! Anji Kills A King is the very definition of "Never meet your heroes. They will surely disappoint." but to an extreme. The Menagerie is a group that Anji and most of the known world look up to. They are basically the superheroes of this world and we find out rather quickly that they are all absolutely psychotic. They are basically serial killers with The Senate's stamp of approval to go forth and slaughter. What's worse? Is these guys end up being religious fanatics to boot so they are just all-around sociopaths. While this is a bit of a spoiler, I think it's important to point out that when Anji *does* get taken from The Hawk at one point I was genuinely terrified for her, thats how bad these guys are and how well-written they are.

Moving on from The Menagerie, but seriously, they are in itself a damn good reason to read this book. 

Anji and The Hawk are both absolutely wonderful characters and Anji is one of the few who absolutely refuses to grow up throughout most of the book, so that is saying a lot from me. I usually detest characters like Anji but her reasons while are not necessarily valid but come from a place of emotion and just plain being naive through no fault of her own, so I find her actions to be normal. Plus she is clearly intelligent so I find this to be one of those cases where seeing the big picture would have forced her to let go of her anger and I don't think she would have survived as much as she did and does if she did that. Hawk is great as well, complicated backstory and a motivation to do the right thing after years of doing wrong. Plus, she's on the other side of forty which is amazing since she's such a badass!

The world building is really well done in that honestly, you didn't need a lot of detail about the world because hey we are living in a version of it right *now*. A group of religious zealots is brutally enforcing their beliefs on the masses through othering, fear, the withdrawal of education from the lower classes, and good 'ole fashioned public executions. The higher-ups of The One are, of course, giant hypocrites partaking in the very behaviors and acts they are hanging people for. 

Finally, because I know someone's going to say it: Yes, I totally did see the end coming, it had to end the way it did. Plus it was one hell of a ride getting to it with several twists and turns I didn't see coming, some excellent characters, and some epic fight scenes with a young woman *and* older woman. We do not have enough badass 40 plus year old women in fantasy novels period end of story. So whether it was predictable to me doesn't really matter. 

Highly recommend especially if you like Cameron Johnston's novels. Nobody in this book is wholly good, but there are people that are extremely evil, and it's not because they killed the king.