Wickhills
by Premee Mohamed
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted September 12, 2026
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Premee Mohamed does it again. Wickhills, her fifth novel, is a masterful blend of secondary world fantasy, sometimes verging on horror, as well as being an exciting and mysterious spy thriller. The main character is Vycol Ferec, although that is not his real name, which we never learn, but we eventually get a brief glimpse of his past. He lives in Wickhills, a strange city, one of the Six, all of which may be on the same continent, but I'm not positive about that. All the cities are surrounded by high walls, the only contact between them being by ships. It is said to be impossible to travel overland between them, but as he does throughout the story, Ferec defies the odds. I probably missed it, but I recall only two of the other cities being named: St. Barothain, and Sidi, which is where Ferec is at the end.
Ferec works for Seaborne, the secret police of Wickhills. The story opens with him and his partner (at least for this mission) Tanczel, waiting at the dock for a ship arriving from St. Barothain. They aren't sure what their target is, either an object or a person. They had been waiting for three days, then the Caranton Hill finally arrives. They pose as stevedores to search the ship, hindered by their limited information, but Ferec finally deduces the most likely hiding place is one of the lifeboats. Inside what appears to be a large coil of rope they find their target, Dr. Alabeus, who turns out to be a scientist fleeing the restrictions on his work. Which of course he will not explain to Ferec. Shortly after getting off the ship, and circumventing customs, they are attacked by three assailants. Ferec kills two of them, the other escapes, but Tanczel is also killed. Ferec is able to get Alabeus to a safe hiding place. Then he is contacted by his superior officer.
Wickhills is home to many different intelligent species besides humans. Ferec's boss is Bardanes, a manticore. He summons Ferec to one of Seaborne's secret labs, the Onyx, where the bodies of the two men Ferec had killed are on slabs, ready for inspection and/or dissection. Bardanes had also summoned another agent to assist Ferec. Hoepsachett was mainly an office administrator, even though she had a brief tryout as a field agent years before. The details concerning what Alabeus had been working on are confusing, as is whether he wanted the work to continue or be destroyed. Toward the end I thought of it as equivalent to our historical Manhattan Project, something capable of great destruction. Ferec is stymied at almost every turn, suspecting, and then confirming, that some Seaborne agents were working in conjunction with St. Barothain to retrieve Alabeus and his device, or working toward their own ends. At times Ferec suspects the City itself is working against him. Many believed the city was a sentient being, but even if not, Wickhills utilized many different creatures for various purposes. No reason to think some of that was not for surveillance, defence, or attack.
In addition to the secretive Seaborne, Wickhills also had the Watch, equivalent to police, and they might also be part of the judiciary. Ferec had been on his own since he was five, learning as much as he could about Wickhills and its various neighborhoods, and that included the undercity. Below the sewers there was The Low, inhabited by many who had a foothold there as well as aboveground. Further down was The Holloway, and below that, in the bedrock, was Synfolde. Before he was recruited by Bardanes, but after he had acquired his new name, Ferec had worked in Synfolde. He is forced to retreat there to beg the King of the underworld for help, which is granted. The King is another mysterious creature I won't attempt to describe. Ferec gained the assitance of Gus (Augustine), a young girl who was a master thief. Also Cazenave, a vampyr, who was instructed that he could not dine on anyone until the mission was over. He was useful in casting spells, glamours, so that they could move undetected. Ferec has to deal with several double (possibly triple) agents, had even started suspecting Hoepsachett. I suspected Bardanes. I won't say if I or Ferec was correct on any assumptions.
Background information is provided in various Interludes between chapters, all of which start with "[X] tells a story." In the first, Bardanes, who is several hundreds of years old, tells of how he came to Wickhills, and about the Civil War and its aftermath, how the various governmental and civil organizations were developed. Then Alabeus talks about his work, of his fear of its use, how he escaped St. Barothain. The third interlude is very short, with Ferec's story consisting of just two words, "Absolutely not." The fourth is for Cazenave to tell the history of his people, which dispells some of the myths about vampyrs, or at least his type of vampyr. For instance, he is not restricted to the darkness, he can venture forth into daylight. In the fifth interlude Ferec relents and tells (some of) his story. His father had left them, his mother died shortly after that, so he was an orphan at five. He did whatever was necessary to survive, whether it be theft or murder, but along the way he learned much, including reading and writing, which he utilized to become a master forger. And learning as much about Wickhills as possible, and his very good memory allowed him to navigate every neighborhood. Ferec defies the notion that a main character has to be likeable, or sympathetic, although it would be easy to be sympathetic to his plight at the age of five. Bardanes recruited and trained him. He tried to remain within Seaborne's protocols, but was not averse to bending the rules to get the job done.
There is no need to detail anything else about the plot and its resolution, or even if there is a resolution. As mentioned above, Ferec (but under another name) eventually makes it to Sidi, by traveling through the desert that stretched between Wickhills and Sidi. Not that it is necessary, but I would love to read about his further adventures. Regardless of what Premee writes, I will read it. This is highly recommended.
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