Private Mage

Picture a London that took a different turn-a city where magic flourishes instead of physical sciences. Carpets drift above streets clogged with horse-drawn wagons and cycles, crystal balls instead of telephones carry messages, and a licensed practitioner can be hired to deal with any troubles ordinary folk cannot handle.

One particular practitioner keeps a dingy office on the wrong side of town, feet planted on his desk, and his crystal ball gathering dust until the next client climbs the stairs. His cases arrive in strange shapes: a fortune that reeks of murder, a vanished colleague, a rogue sorcerer loose in the fog, a haunting that refuses to behave. Cracking them takes more than a spell-it takes the nerve and patience of a born detective!

Collected for the first time, here are all thirteen Private Mage tales, fusing hardboiled crime with gaslamp wonder, as a mage-for-hire walks the dark streets of a city where every case bends the rules of both magic and the law.