The Devils

The Devils is a 2025 grimdark fantasy novel and the first installment in the series of the same name by British author Joe Abercrombie. Set in an alternate medieval Europe, the novel follows Brother Diaz, a monk appointed to lead the shadowy Chapel of Holy Expediency, the Church’s covert branch that employs a ragtag group of monsters and criminals to achieve its less-savory ends. Their mission is to escort Alex, the secret heir to Troy, across Europe to reclaim her throne. The novel is half gory violence, half irreverent comedy, and explores themes including The Struggle for Redemption, The Fallibility of Religious Institutions, and The Evolution of Found Family. Abercrombie debuted in the genre with his 2006 debut novel, The Blade Itself, the first novel in his The First Law series. He followed this trilogy with several standalone novels that cemented his reputation as a leading figure in grimdark fantasy.

This guide references the 2025 eBook edition published by Tor Books.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, religious discrimination, gender discrimination, ableism, child death, substance use, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

The Devils takes place in a fantasy world based on the real-life world of medieval Europe. It is told through the third-person, limited omniscient points of view of several characters.

The novel opens as Brother Diaz travels through the Holy City to meet with the pope, only to be informed he will meet Cardinal Zizka instead. Zizka tells Diaz that he’s been chosen to lead the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, the Church’s secretive task force. She introduces him to his new colleagues, the immortal Templar Jakob of Thorn and fighter Baptiste, who lead him into the chapel’s hidden dungeon. There, Diaz meets the imprisoned team, whom Zizka calls “the devils”: the necromancer Balthazar, the elf Sunny, and the vampire Baron Rikard.

Meanwhile, Alex, a thief, is saved from a gang she owes money to by Duke Michael of Nicaea, who claims she is Princess Alexia Pyrogennetos, heir to the throne of Troy. She’s taken to the Church’s Celestial Palace, where she learns that her mission to reclaim the throne will be supported by the Church. However, she is likely to be challenged by the four treacherous sons of her late aunt, the sorceress Empress Eudoxia. The Church is sending the Chapel of the Holy Expediency to protect her. The devils on the team are marked with a binding by the pope, which will keep them tied to the mission and to Alex. On the road, Balthazar attempts to break the binding but fails.

Before long, they are ambushed—Duke Marcian, one of Eudoxia’s sons, attacks with the help of hybrid human-animal soldiers created by his mother. When the team is overwhelmed, Jakob tries to unlock their wagon but is fatally stabbed by Marcian. The Duke then turns on Alex, but while he’s distracted, Sunny opens the wagon, releasing Vigga, a werewolf and the final member of the team. She slaughters the hybrid soldiers and Duke Marcian. When she turns on Alex and Brother Diaz, Jakob stands back up and commands her to stop. In response, she transforms back into her human form.

The survivors regroup in the wreckage. An injured Duke Michael argues that returning to the Holy City is too dangerous, and Alex insists on continuing to Troy. Michael is too injured to continue and bids her farewell, telling her to trust his contact in Troy, Lady Severa, until he arrives.

To evade pursuit, the group abandons their original plan and instead heads for Venice. They join a group of pilgrims hoping to hide. However, Apollonia, the Bishop who is traveling with the pilgrims, betrays them, hoping to collect the reward for Alex from Duke Constans. Baron Rikard uses his vampiric powers to mesmerize the bishop and pilgrims, allowing the group to escape.

In Venice, the group barters for passage to Troy through a local crime lord named Frigo. In return, they retrieve a mysterious box from a cursed house. When they open the box, Jakob, Sunny, and Vigga face illusions that prey on their fears, but they are saved by Balthazar, who remotely breaks the spell through a ritual.

Once they deliver the box to Frigo, they depart by ship for Troy, but they are attacked on the way by Duke Constans. Their ship is rammed and, as it begins to sink, it is boarded by more hybrid soldiers. Jakob is stabbed by Constans but manages to kill the Duke before the ship sinks.

The group washes ashore, separated. Balthazar, Baptiste, Baron Rikard, and Jakob are caught in a local war between Countess Jovanka and Count Radosav, a bickering married couple. After they help defuse the conflict, Balthazar begins what he says is a ritual to locate Alex, but instead he summons Shaxep, a Duke of Hell. He asks her to break his binding, but she refuses, saying she cannot undo it.

Alex and Sunny, meanwhile, escape from the beach, pursued by Duke Sabbas and his bounty hunters, who are in turn tracked by Vigga and Brother Diaz. Vigga kills some of the bounty hunters, who have cornered Sunny and Alex. The four then take shelter in a ruined abbey.

Duke Sabbas and the rest of his hunters arrive, followed shortly by Balthazar, Baptiste, Baron Rikard, and Jakob of Thorn. Jakob challenges Sabbas to a duel, buying Balthazar time to raise a horde of plague dead from their resting place deep beneath the abbey. The corpses break through the ground and drag Sabbas into the pit below. After the battle, the group takes refuge in Sabbas’s abandoned camp. Sunny drunkenly tries to give a toast but is sick before finishing. Alex takes her to the tent to rest, and Sunny kisses her.

The group finally arrives in Troy, where Lady Severa meets them. She takes them to the Pharos of Troy, a majestic fusion of fortress, temple, and lighthouse that looms above the city. They prepare for Alex’s coronation but are stopped by Eudoxia’s final son, Duke Arcadius. Rather than fighting them as his brothers did, he proposes marriage between himself and Alex instead.

Michael and Severa push the match as a political necessity. Distraught, Alex tells Sunny she’s not the princess; she is a common thief who assumed the real Alexia’s identity after the princess’s death from disease in the Holy City years prior. She begs Sunny to run away with her, but Sunny refuses.

When Alex is crowned and their mission is over, the devils prepare to leave Troy to return to the Holy City. In the royal apartments, Arcadius tells Alex that he’s only interested in a political partnership to protect Troy, and she agrees. However, her new handmaidens are revealed to be Eudoxia’s former apprentices. They assassinate Arcadius, but Alex escapes and lights the emergency signal at the top of the Pharos.

Seeing the signal from their ship, the devils turn back to help. Vigga is forced to turn into her wolf form and accidentally kills Baptiste. Balthazar, meanwhile, learns that Lady Severa is actually Eudoxia, who succeeded in transferring her soul into another body. Rather than fighting him, she gives up her fight for the throne and offers him an alliance. Though tempted, Balthazar declines, choosing loyalty to the devils instead.

Atop the Pharos, Baron Rikard kills the four handmaidens. Alex tries to escape with Sunny, but they are intercepted by Michael, who reveals that he used Alex to eliminate his rivals and seize the throne for himself. Jakob tackles Michael, sending them both plummeting from the top of the Pharos into the sea.

In the aftermath of the attempted coup, Cardinal Zizka arrives in Troy to meet Empress Alexia and Brother Diaz, who now serves as her chaplain. Alex demands the Church release the devils from its control, but Zizka refuses, saying they’re too dangerous. They are imprisoned in the hold of the Cardinal’s ship to be taken back with her until the Church needs them again. Back in the Holy City, Mother Beckert, the former head of the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, and a man named Caruso are summoned by the Church to serve as replacements for Diaz and Baptiste.