Ever since conspiracies exploded into the mainstream in America and started ruining lives and families, I have been leery of them in fiction. As with our collective disinterest in dystopia, it’s hard to escape to a world that isn’t, well, much of an escape. And that’s a shame, because high-stakes espionage and the thrill of …

I’m late to the party on The Helm of Midnight, published last year alongside so many other pandemic-delayed books. But please don’t let my tardiness imply anything negative about Marina Lostetter’s dark fantasy debut, a sleek mystery that rushes through a wildly inventive setting at a breathless—but remarkably sustained—pace. The Helm of Midnight could have …