The Gutter Arch Gambit

A murdered gargoyle. A stolen menagerie of impossible monsters. Three days to stop an auction that could restart the Severance.

Benched Detective Jack Voss and by-the-book Sergeant Wren Oakhollow have one lead: a final message scratched into the rail beneath the Gutter Arch. The Menagerie is loose-a petrifying basilisk, two shapeshifting mimics, a pack of grief-eaters, and a two-headed manticore with strong opinions about poetry-and a black-market auction is coming. With goblin forensic accountant Gribble, a cursed-archmage-cat named Bartholomew, and a very reluctant Captain Vlad, they trace the monsters through haunted subway tunnels, a hospital ward drowning in sorrow, and the Ley-Line Markets, where a disgraced fae named Lysander Vane is selling to the highest bidder. The money runs through Councilman Elias Thorne's law-and-order campaign, but the real prize is a cache of anchor-seeds that could let the Hollow Lord's surviving faction restart the Severance.

About the Book: The Gutter Arch Gambit is a fast, funny, warm-hearted urban fantasy detective novel about a city where magic is mundane and regulated-where trolls run toll booths, gargoyles deliver mail, brownies maintain the subway, and the precinct building has opinions about your paperwork. Jack charges in. Wren files the right form. Together they have to talk a mimic out of the captain's face, contain a basilisk with a mirrored evidence bag, and turn a properly drafted warrant into the most powerful weapon in Veridian Reach.

• A snarky, competent detective duo who argue about procedure while the world catches fire
• A workplace ensemble of goblins, gargoyles, ghosts, and one very opinionated cat
• A petrifying basilisk in the subway and a grief-eater in the hospital-contained with paperwork, mirrors, and nerve
• A black-market auction beneath the Gutter Arch where the monsters are the least dangerous thing on the block

Because in Veridian Reach, the only reliable weapon is a properly filed warrant.