It's surprising that nobody has thought of putting a classic noir story in a fantasy setting. Or maybe somebody already did and I just never heard about it until now.
Low Town (British title: The Straight Razor Cure) is a smart mashup of the two genres. As many other readers have noted, it's not a stretch to completely lift the main story out of its fantasy setting and into the worlds of Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler. In fact, this is the main liability of the novel: the fantasy world at times doesn't hold up particularly well. In particular, a visit to a corrupt noble's home feels like the Warden (our nameless hero) walked into a mid-20th century estate in the nice part of town.Although Daniel Polansky is an American author, he seems to have lost his
American publisher. Therefore, the remaining two books in the series are UK-only titles, and his new series (a duology, I think) is also not available in the United States. But, it's a small world after all, so I'm sure this won't prove an overly cumbersome barrier to being able to read these books sometime down the road.
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