Magic. Mayhem. Mob-bosses. Mandarin. Claire Gile's past is the last thing she needs to catch up on - or is that vice-versa...?
Welcome to Ilium; where behind the strip malls and suburban sprawl, the inhuman things that stalk the night eke out a tranquil life of comparative normality.
Enter Claire Giles; Eurasian assistant to the city's occult-detective extraordinaire and new to the esoteric underbelly of alchemical mob-bosses, werewolf law enforcement and alimony-stained sorcerers. She's learning that if she squints right, she can just about make out what lurks beneath their shiny glamours and subtle magics. We mentioned 'magic,' right? That's good; because Ilium's a tinderbox, and somebody just lit the match.
Today someone killed one of the city's crime bosses. Somebody dangerous. Somebody bad. And that somebody wants to know Claire intimately. It's a bad time to be in Ilium...