Humans and elves, dwarves and gnomes, wizards and warriors all live and do business in the thriving, overcrowded port city of Cliff's End, to say nothing of the tourists and travelers who arrive by land and sea, passing through the metropolis on matters of business or pleasure-or on quests. The hard-working, under-appreciated officers of the Cliff's End Castle Guard work day and night to maintain law and order as best they can.
Arra Cynnis is the youngest child in one of the most powerful families in the wealthy district of Unicorn Precinct. When she's found murdered, with the culprit's identity hidden from the magickal examiner's spells, the Captain of the Guard sends his best investigators. Ex-soldier Torin ban Wyvald and half-elf Danthres Tresyllione have two viable suspects: Arra's fiancé, who is the cousin of another member of the Castle Guard, or the unknown person with whom Arra was having a torrid affair.
Torin and Danthres must navigate the difficult political waters of Cliff's End's upper classes in an attempt to determine the girl's killer. Complicating the case is the unexpected appearance of Torin's estranged father, who has come to return the detective to his far-off homeland of Myverin, and he won't take no for an answer . . . .
An all-new adventure of the Cliff's End Castle Guard!
Author Biography:
KEITH R.A. DeCANDIDO is a white male in his late forties, approximately 200 pounds. He was last seen in the wilds of the Bronx, New York, though he is often sighted in other locales. Usually he is armed with a laptop computer, which some have classified as a deadly weapon. Through use of this laptop, he has inflicted more than fifty novels, as well as an indeterminate number of short stories, comic books, nonfiction, novellas, and anthologies on an unsuspecting reading public. Many of these are set in the milieus of television shows, movies, games, and comic books, among them Star Trek, Cars, Doctor Who, Supernatural, World of Warcraft, Orphan Black, Alien, Marvel Comics, and many more. We have received information confirming that more stories involving Torin, Danthres, and the city-state of Cliff's End can be found in the novels Unicorn Precinct, Goblin Precinct, Gryphon Precinct, and the forthcoming Mermaid Precinct, Phoenix Precinct, and Manticore Precinct, as well as the short-story collection Tales from Dragon Precinct. His other recent crimes against humanity include the urban fantasy novel A Furnace Sealed; the Orphan Black coffee-table book Classified Clone Report; the Alien novel Isolation; the Tales of Asgard trilogy of prose novels featuring Marvel's Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three; short stories in the anthologies Aliens: Bug Hunt, the two Baker Street Irregulars volumes, The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries, The Best of Defending the Future, Joe Ledger: Unstoppable, Nights of the Living Dead, The X-Files: Trust No One, among others; and writing about pop culture for Tor.com and Patreon. If you see DeCandido, do not approach him, but call for back-up immediately. He is often seen in the company of a suspicious-looking woman who goes by the street name of Wrenn, as well as several as-yet-unidentified cats. A full dossier can be found at DeCandido.net.
