Picture the Baltimore of The Wire: a city where the criminal subculture has evolved not just into a shadow economy, but a shadow society, flourishing under the surface of official "law and order." This is Low Town, the world of the Warden, a drug dealer who has carved out a bit of territory for himself and will get his hands dirty to protect it, if need be. But the Warden is not just a brutal thug, and when a young girl is kidnapped and murdered in his neighborhood, he decides to hunt down the killer, because he knows how incompetent the city's investigators are--having been one himself before leaving in disgrace.
So far, this sounds like a standard urban thriller, but Daniel Polansky includes a twist: in the dark, swashbuckling fantasy world of Low Town, magic is real. Instead of forensic investigators, for example, the guard has "scryers" who glean psychic impressions off dead bodies. Although the Warden solves the dead girl's murder quickly, it involves a demonic force that causes the law to shut the case down and order him to keep his trap shut. Then another child goes missing, and the guard is back to put the squeeze on the Warden, who will have to see the case all the way through this time.
Polansky's imaginary city has resonances to our world, like the parallels between his Kirentown and a real-life Chinatown. Those help hook the reader into the story, which turns into the type of noir narrative where everything and everyone is tainted by corruption. Meanwhile, solving these murders forces the Warden to confront his old life. spurring its own set of emotional aftershocks. Polansky writes with a steadfast commitment to the downbeat noir sensibility, while leaving room for a sequel if readers' interest warrants. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com