The second book in the acclaimed Carter Archives noir fantasy series returns to the gritty town of Titanshade, where danger lurks around every corner. The city of Titanshade pulses with nervous energy. The discovery of new riches beneath its snowfields has given residents hope for prosperity, but it also means the arrival of federal troops, along with assurances that they are only there to "stabilize the situation".
Newcomers flood the streets, dreaming of finding their fortunes, while in the backrooms and beer halls of the city, a populist resistance gains support, its leaders' true motives hidden behind nativist slogans. And in an alley, a gruesome discovery: the mutilated body of a young woman, a recent immigrant so little-regarded that not even her lovers bothered to learn her name. But in death, she's found a champion.
Detective Carter single-mindedly pursues the killer as he navigates political pressures and resists becoming a pawn in the struggles tipping the city toward anarchy. But when more innocent lives are lost and time runs short, he's forced to decide if justice is worth sparking all-out war in the streets during the biggest celebration of the year: Titan's Day.
Industry Reviews
Praise for Titanshade
"Take a little Mickey Spillane, some Dashiell Hammett, a bit of Raymond Chandler, and mix it with Phillip K. Dick's Blade Runner; add a taste of C. J. Box, and Craig Johnson, and you've got a masterpiece of a first novel. I hate to call any novel a work of genius, but Stout's Titanshade taps all the right keys." -W. Michael Gear, New York Times bestselling author
"Debut author Stout combines a pitch-perfect noir tone and a richly detailed world full of human, amphibian, and less-identifiable characters in this instantly gripping fantastical mystery.... Stout handles this complex mystery with ease, invoking the best elements of classic noir mysteries, while fearlessly making this world, with its retro style and multilayered mythology, all his own." -Publishers Weekly (starred)
"Titanshade is entirely unique: it's a gritty noir murder mystery on an alien world with multiple species, a strange form of sorcery, a powerful religion, and large-scale political intrigue. And it's set in the 1970s, with pay phones, 8-track tapes, racial tensions, and arguments about disco music. What's amazing is how good it is at being all of these: the genuinely compelling mystery lives in a hugely original sf world and an immersive historical milieu." -ALA Booklist (starred)
"Dan Stout's debut novel is flawless. Titanshade is set in an original, gritty fantasy world, like enough to ours to take you by the throat as the detective noir plot roars along, yet filled with intriguing other beings and moments of remarkable magic. Highly recommended." -Julie E. Czerneda, author of The Gossamer Mage
"If you like rollicking detective stories with some action-adventure and alien culture to overlay the mystery, you should give this one a look. I can almost guarantee it won't be what you expect." -SFRevu
"All in all, the book grows on the reader, slowly at first, but then with the speed of a rabid kudzu vine egged on by supervillainess Poison Ivy. By the end of the book Titanshade satisfies well enough to make you start over at the beginning to see what you missed." -New York Journal of Books
"Titanshade was a wonderful blend of magical realism, police procedural, and thriller." -Genre Minx
"This is a solid debut, giving us a fascinating new world, some fun characters who feel real, and a story which, I guarantee will keep you turning pages into the wee hours." -Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviews
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