The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn

The remote settlement of Estuary has an issue: one of the family groups wants help to rebuild their home and the rest of the families have refused. Normally this kind of dispute wouldn't fall to an investigator, but Estuary doesn't have a committee of its own to settle arguments. And so Enid and trainee Teeg have been sent to look into the matter and make a decision. 

It's clear from arrival that Semperfi's home is doomed and so it should be a quick in and out, leaving Enid enough time to make it home for the birth of Serenity's new baby. But all hopes of a quick resolution are quashed when the body of a young woman is found near the crumbling abode. 

No one in Estuary claims to know the girl but it's clear she was murdered and Enid sees it as her responsibility to solve the case. Her job is complicated by the fact that no one in the settlement is talking. And when they do, it's to point fingers at the one house that was involved in an investigation over two decades ago - an investigation that has no bearing on the murder. 

This follow up to Vaughn's Phillip K. Dick Award winning Bannerless returns readers to the post apocalyptic setting of Enid's world.

This is a future well beyond our present. In this time, a home like Semperfi's is actually a relic from our time. Society has rebuilt itself into small settlements, connected by a well-traveled road and a governing body and set of rules meant to pay heed to available resources, rewarding those who use those resources well and restricting those who don't.

As in its predecessor, one of the driving forces in Estuary is the earning of banners, which allows a household to have children. But more than that, the struggling community relies on helping one another and the head of Semperfi feels his house has done its part helping others and deserves the same in return.

Again, this isn't the kind of thing any investigator would normally be tasked with. And Estuary is about as far as one can get on the Coast Road, which means Enid is a long way from her home. Circumstances aren't convenient either since Enid's home has earned its own banner and the baby is due any day. But Enid takes her job seriously and her name was up on the roster when the request for mediation came in. And she takes her job even more seriously when a body is discovered.

A lesser investigator might shirk off their duty by tackling the easiest route to identifying a suspect, but Enid has already proven herself as a true investigator in this world - one focused on getting to the truth of the matter rather than the simplest solution.

And again, it doesn't really earn her any friends! Which is why I like her and this series so much :)

Of course the other reason I love this series is the setting. I'm an admitted sucker for post apocalyptic stories and anything with a mystery element catches my eye. Taking away the benefit of labs and forcing the character to rely on the most basic investigative measures - pure and simple questioning and instinct - makes this a less flashy mystery series, but one that gives the characters a chance to really shine.

If you didn't know, Bannerless came out of a short story Vaughn wrote (which is part of her collection Amaryllis and Other Stories). She's also got a prequel short to the series up on Tor.com for free, you can check out "Where Would You Be Now?" here.