Book Discussion Occult Detectives?

[Xenophon]

What are occult private-eye series you reccommend? I read the Jim Butcher series during Covid. Not much holds a candle to it. Stephen Leathers' Jack Nightengale series kills off every interesting character a few chapters after introducing them (part of the book's Jack-is-under-a-curse premise.) Besides which Leathers' knowledge of magick seems sparse; his technical details (e.g., firearms, police procedure) pretty lame. The Repairman Jack series is better, but tries too hard to be topical & sentimental. Jack's a cuck stuck happily raising another man's kid, check. He's kindly to kids with AIDS, check. All the petty criminals are specifically identified as blue-eyed, light-haired types, check. In short, ham-handed and predictable. Is aught better out there?

 

[pixel_fortune]

Rivers of London is literally The Bill with wizards (The Bill was a long running English beat cop drama)

The Taltos novels by Steven Brust are great, and the early ones fit your request. (he's an assassin not a detective but it works out the same, because he has to follow the intended mark, learn about them and their lives, choose the right time of day and plan everything out, untangle power relationships etc - he's basically a reverse detective? The setting is different (the underlying mythology is Hungarian) but people who like Butcher tend to like Brust, similar wiseass protagonist. The later books get more epic in scale, but the early ones work fine as standalone )

 

[theil]

What are occult private-eye series you reccommend? I read the Jim Butcher series during Covid. Not much holds a candle to it.

Dresden Files is probably the best in that genre I know, but I'm not the best to say since noir detective genre isn't one I read a lot of.

If you like post-apocalypse and Fae mythos, you might check out "What Fate Portends (The Frost Arcana Book 1)". It's a 5 book series. First 2 books are 2.99 USD, the last book is 4.99 USD.

"Faeries liked to tease the weak, but they loved to annihilate the strong."​

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Seven years ago, the exposure of the paranormal led to the tumultuous downfall of human society. Now, the legions of the fae rule the broken world, and humanity has nothing left but a handful of protected cities and a heaping helping of regret.​

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Enter Vincent Whelan. Half fae and former cop, he's become the best-known stretch scavenger in Kinsale, North Carolina, braving the "stretches" outside his city to recover precious items lost in the collapse. He makes good money. Lives the good life. Has a good future in store. As long as he can ignore his traumatic memories of the past.​

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But when a new job with an odd twist blows onto his doorstep, Vince finds himself unwittingly drawn into a vast conspiracy lurking underneath Kinsale's thin veneer of civilization. Old friends suddenly return to haunt him. New enemies appear at every turn. And Vince fears he isn't prepared to confront either one.​

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But if he doesn't put his detective hat back on and solve this case on a tight deadline, then what's left of the city he calls home might just crumble to dust.​

 

[neilwilkes]

Sounds like fun - thanks for this.
I've not seen anything actually good for a while - tip appreciated