Like its predecessor The Element of Fire, The Death of the Necromancer begins with a heist. Wells gives the first line to Madeline, an actress and singer who is rising in the theatrical world of Ile-Rien’s capital city, Vienne. She is also tightly entwined with a leading figure in the city’s criminal underworld. “The most nerve-racking commissions,” she thinks, “were the ones that required going in through the front door.” (p. 327; all page numbers are from the omnibus edition, The Book of Ile-Rien.) The man on her arm as they go in through the front door is Captain Reynard Morane, a former cavalry officer to whom some considerable scandal has become attached. He is not the underworld boss, but the two of them are in fact thick as thieves. The front door they are going through is that of Mondollot House, where the eponymous Duchess is giving a large winter ball. Their job, though it is not immediately apparent, is nothing so simple as liberating valuable jewels from the Duchess’ keeping; instead, they are to facilitate a far greater theft of gold bars from the lower levels of Mondollot House by temporarily bringing down some of its magical defenses.

They are working on behalf of and in partnership with Nicholas Valiarde, aka the criminal mastermind Donatien. Nicholas is a descendant of an ancient and, it transpires, entirely disreputable noble family, though he himself grew up in poverty. When his mother died, he turned to petty thievery until he was rescued and taken in by a magician named Edouard Villard. Nicholas owes him everything, and so his improper conviction of and execution for necromancy — which takes place well before the novel begins — turns Nicholas’ life upside down. The heist that begins The Death of the Necromancer is part of an elaborate plan to bring justice to the man who was instrumental in Edouard’s framing.

The team carries off the heist, but there are oddities. Someone had been to Madeline’s goal before her and used a different method to circumvent the magical defenses of Mondollot House. Who? Why? Someone had also been in the lower cellars where Nicholas and the rest of the crew carried off a significant amount of gold bars. These others had either ignored the gold or not known about it, but they had plainly been looking for something. Had they found it? What was it? And who were they? They had also either left or unleashed a number of ghouls, leading to a narrow escape for Nicholas and company.

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