I’m a sucker for novels set in Chicago. Also for pulp-era, 1930’s fantasy, and a good adventure series. So give me a good adventure series set in 1930’s Chicago, and I get a little weak in the knees.

Ari Marmell has been knocking around the industry for some time. He did some high profile Dungeons & Dragons releases for Wizards of the Coast, and his credits include the 4th Edition Tomb of Horrors, Cityscape, and The Plane Below. But recently he’s achieved a much higher profile as a novelist, with successful titles like The Conqueror’s Shadow, and Covenant’s End.

But his newest series, featuring magic-wielding private detective Mick Oberon in 1932 Chicago, is definitely more my speed. The first volume, Hot Lead, Cold Iron, was published in paperback by Titan in May of last year, and the second, Hallow Point, just arrived earlier this month. Both have great covers by Julia Lloyd.

Here’s what Publishers Weekly said about Hot Lead, Cold Iron in a starred review:

In this gripping fantastical investigation, Marmell (The Goblin Corps) creates an engaging world and an unlikely hero. Mick Oberon is a gumshoe in 1930s Chicago, a world of Prohibition-fueled lawlessness, corrupt politicians, and rapidly advancing technology. The wife of a mafia boss hires him to find her daughter, who has been missing — replaced by a changeling — for 16 years. The cold case soon gets hot, and Oberon unravels a crime that leads him back to the courts of the Fae. This harrowing adventure moves effortlessly between the mortal world and the magical Chicago Otherworld. The potent mix of gangsters, magic, Fae politics, and a strega on the warpath makes for a ride that never touches the brakes.

And here’s the description for the sequel, Hallow Point:

The Spear of Lugh, one of the four Kingly Hallows of Ireland is in Chicago. And everyone, everyone wants it, for it is said that he who carries the spear into battle cannot be defeated. Among those who seek it are an agent of the infamous Wild Hunt; a mobster who knows far more about these things than he should; and of course both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts – the last people PI Mick Oberon would want getting hold of the spear…

Hot Lead, Cold Iron was published on May 13, 2014, and Hallow Point on August 18, 2015. Both are 400 pages and priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, with covers by Julia Lloyd. Hallow Point is $7.99 for the digital edition, but the opening volume is just $1.99 — check it out.

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