Title: Under a Luminous Sky
Author: Jake The Army Guy
Genre: Murder Mystery
Word Count: 99k
Synopsis: Ponyville, the humble village known for its peaceful tranquility, is shaken to its core when a body is discovered in the Everfree Forest. As the townsponies grieve, the strange, pale Special Agent Bentgrass, from Their Majesties' Royal Investigative Service, arrives at the Books and Branches library and drags Twilight into a world she's only read about: lies, corruption, suspicion, and murder.

Faced with an indifferent police force, and Agent Bentgrass's infuriating methods, Twilight must put the pieces together and catch the killer. But as blood continues to spill and questions pile up, one thing is terrifyingly clear: in the dark of the Everfree, much more is at play than mere murder.

Under A Luminous Sky is one of those stories that deserves to be famous.

It’s a murder mystery about ponies.

Murder Mystery.

Ponies.

And if those words can’t convince you to read it, then maybe this review will.

If you’re not like me, and don’t read very many dark-fics, then allow me to put this into perspective. In the whole of fimfiction, there are only two pony-murder-mysteries that I am aware of, and one was written as a joke.

Now, that being said, in addition to being the best murder mystery on fimfic, Under A Luminous Sky is one of the best stories on Fimfiction period.

The story starts at a run— going from Zero to Sixty in about five minutes; one of the background ponies (I won’t say which), is walking around Ponyville when they happen to stumble across a psycho killer, and then gets murdered to death, and that’s just the first chapter.

When the body is found, Twilight sends a letter to Princess Celestia, and PC promptly dispatches one Special Agent Bentgrass to the scene. He requests Twilight Sparkle to aid him in his investigation, and together they set off to solve this heinous crime and bring the killer to justice. And herein lies UALS’s apart from the competition:

Agent Bentgrass is Sherlock Holmes, and Twilight Sparkle is Watson.

There’s a reason why Watson exists: as interesting and ingenious as Sherlock Holmes might be, if a story were ever to be written solely about Mr. Holmes, then it would no doubt disintegrate into a big grey pile of slop. Sherlock Holmes may be a genius, but the thing that makes him so enticing to read about is that he’s also mysterious. If he was ever the viewpoint character in one of his own novels, that mystery would be dispelled. And it’s no different here. Agent Bentgrass by himself is a very interesting character to read about. But everything he says or does basically boils down to: “I”m a mysterious secret agent.” And if this story was only about him, then it would be a dull and boring mess. But it’s not. If fact, the main character is actually Twilight Sparkle, and her interactions with Bentgrass; trying to pull details out of him like a dentists pulling teeth, to wrapping her head around his somewhat ‘questionable’ methods will keep the reader guessing at his every move, to say nothing of the ultimate mystery of who the killer is. It’s this partnership that makes Bentgrass work as a character; the union between this unfathomable and mysterious detective, and the bookish, relatable Twilight sparkle.

As the story begins, we learn that Spike is getting ready to take the first of his thousand year naps; Rainbow Dash is getting married (not saying to whom), and you really get the feeling that this murder has interrupted lives, thrown plans into disarray and otherwise just screwed things up royally. And these little touches really do a lot to immerse the reader in the story.

Beyond that, into the actual murder investigation, Agent Bentgrass and Twilight quickly find themselves with a whole lot more questions than answers. The nature of the crime is rather . . . brutal, and the local authorities are both eager and willing to write off the case as an animal attack. This leaves Twilight and Bentgrass more or less to figure things out on their own, and in the course of their investigation, things just seem to go from bad to worse.

I don’t want to go into too much detail without getting into potential spoilers— mysteries, like comedies, are best enjoyed without too much foreknowledge— but suffice to say, Under A Luminous Sky is a great treat for those who prefer a little darker fare, and at just under 100k words, it’ll keep you occupied for a while.

[Link to Story]

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