Steeplejack

Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga repairs and cleans chimneys, towers, and spires above Bar-Selehm, an industrial capital whose communities live with racial and colonial tensions. When the city’s valuable glowing Beacon disappears and suspicious deaths follow, including the murder of Anglet’s young apprentice, she accepts work from an opposition politician. Her task is to investigate the deaths and recover the jewel. The fantasy setting draws on Victorian England and apartheid-era South Africa, with Feldish colonialists, Lani laborers, and Mahweni inhabitants sharing the city uneasily.