DARKWALKER (Nicolas Lenoir 1)

DARKWALKER is a fast-paced fantasy about prejudice and past demons, set in a world that echoes Europe in the decades before the Industrial Revolution, with a fascinating anti-hero at its heart.

Inspector Nicolas Lenoir fled his beloved home city with a green-eyed demon at his heels, and now he can't go back. In Kennian, his new home, someone is stealing children's corpses, and even the brilliant Lenoir doesn't know who. Lenoir's assistant, Sergeant Kody, knows Lenoir's reputation as the shrewdest detective on Kennian's Metropolitan Police force. But it seems to Kody that Lenoir, like most of the force, follows the call of a fat purse more often than the call of justice. Cynical and rootless, Lenoir has few attachments beyond those formed drinking absinthe in the salons of the wealthy. The Inspector does, however, have one friend: his protégé Zach, a 9-year-old orphan with sharp eyes and quick fingers whom Lenoir has been grooming as an informant. When Zach is kidnapped, Lenoir connects the dots between the stolen corpses - all 9-year-old boys - and his young friend and realizes he must overcome his ennui and find Zach. He'd better do it fast, though: as he embarks on the most important case of his life, Lenoir's green-eyed demon has caught up to him.