General's Wrath: The Fallen Corruption

A gold medallion from the Emperor lets the man holding it open a case at any level, from a county office up to the imperial court. Gabriel Reeds has one. He earned it in the south, where he broke the enemy in the desert and brought the territory under one rule, and the Emperor made him Protector of the Empire, a rank below nobody but the throne. He went home after that. His sister had been violated by the local magistrate's son and his mother had been put to torture and was badly hurt. Gabriel dealt with the men responsible inside the courthouse itself, and what came out of that was an arrangement between county officials and families in the capital, who had been taking the compensation money owed to the households of soldiers killed in the war. He worked the case upward from the county office, through the world of hired killers and into the palace. The Emperor's brother-in-law came after him for it, and the Empress backed him while the case stayed open.