One foot in the fade

Fetch Phillips knows he was right to stop his mentor from killing Thurston Niles, wealthy mogul and Sunder City's new benefactor. He also knows the magic can still return. Unfortunately, it seems that he's alone in his desire to bring it back. Sunder City's inhabitants are ready and willing to move on to the prosperous future Thurston promises--no magic, but bustling industry, even if it includes weapons manufacturing and hoarding wealth at the top. Fetch is unrelenting in his pursuit to bring back the city's former glory, and he assembles an unlikely team of allies--a witch-turned-librarian, a genie who will do anything to get her powers back, a rich kid bent on saving the world, and a hired bodyguard--to infiltrate a castle and steal the crown that brings back magical powers. As always, Arnold (Dead Man in a Ditch, 2020) has written a compelling story in which the supporting cast almost steals the show. The ending leaves plenty of room for a sequel, which is a good thing; readers won't want the Fetch Phillips series to end.

Arnold's outstanding third Fetch Phillips urban fantasy (after Dead Man in a Ditch), set seven years after the Coda removed magic from the world, sees human Phillips struggling to sustain his business helping formerly magical clients adjust to that change. Gigs are drying up as supernatural beings reconcile themselves to a permanently diminished existence, a resignation accelerated by the rapacious Niles Company, which is reshaping the infrastructure of Phillips's home base of Sunder City. Now Phillips, who's driven by guilt to find a way to restore magic as his own actions inadvertently caused the Coda, pursues reports of thieves targeting once-magical artifacts, suggesting that someone may know how to restore their powers. But his investigation takes a dangerous turn following the suspicious death of a friend, an angel whose wings could no longer be used for flight. Arnold's attention to worldbuilding details, such as necessary changes to Sunder City's streets to accommodate automobiles, set this a cut above. While many others have tried to wed hard-boiled narration with a supernatural plot, few have been as successful. (May)