BLAVYCOAL

BLAVYCOAL by Matt Ingwalson's dystopian mystery set in the city state of Lohma asks: Can civilization ever be saved from our darker impulses? Blavycoal, described in the novel as the color of gunmetal with a hint of midnight, is the detective’s favored shade. The narrator, never named and referred to throughout as Gumshoe, functions as an everyman and a mirror for the reader’s interpretation of events. Moving between horror, mystery, and noir without fully committing to a stable genre structure, it begins as a conventional murder mystery before introducing werewolves and superhero-like figures referred to as “amateur detectives,” a shift that disrupts the investigative focus.  Where the novel thrives is in its worldbuilding. Lohma is richly constructed and functions as both a physical environment and an ideological system, providing a vivid backdrop for the mystery. The novel’s humor provides intermittent relief from its heavier philosophical and horror elements, helping to balance its tonal extremes. Despite its structural unevenness, BLAVYCOAL succeeds most as a world-driven philosophical noir rather than a conventional mystery.