Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD: The Thin Blue Ley-Line

Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD (2015) Keith R. A. Decandido

Monsters are real, and the NYPD has to deal with the ones who break the law. Thus was born the SCU, or Supernatural Crimes Unit.

The SCU had been formed after a vampire named Bogdan Albescu killed a City Hall employee named John Rosario on the latter’s way to work.

Detective Kiernan closed the first case involving the supernatural, so she became one of the first detectives on the team, and others soon followed.

I like Kiernan.

“It’s immoral.”

“To you, maybe. But nobody’s doin’ nothin’ here that they don’t wanna do. And in my experience? Most people don’t got any control over what turns them on. And also in my experience, people who repress themselves and don’t do what they enjoy ’cause some asshole told ’em it was immoral are the ones who usually go out and do shit that we gotta arrest ’em for later.”

But despite being a unit with a surprising budget, they still have to deal with caps on overtime and all the other BS police officers have to deal with, including requests for replacement silver bullets.

Meanwhile, a rich and powerful man has decided he needs even more power than he already wields. And he’s just as much of an asshole as you’d expect a rich and powerful man to be.

While there were benefits to being one of the lawyers for a powerful magic-user, Ohlmeyer’s rudeness to the help in private was not one of them.

…

Anand had several responses to that but rejected all of them on the grounds that the client was always right—especially when that client had the power to turn him into a newt.

I like urban fantasy and I like police procedurals, so of course I was going to snatch this up as soon as I came across it, and the fact I’m listening to the Shadow Police series probably pushed me to start reading this.

Like most urban fantasy that’s come out in recent years, I love that it’s fully inclusive and the officers reflect the population of the city in which they work–and I adore that officers bring in sweets like cannoli and ube rather than doughnuts. (This is not the first time I’ve come across ube in a story, and I do want to try them.)

I’ll also note that I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read from Blackstone publishing; I probably need to keep an eye on what they publish and perhaps take some chances there.

If you like this, you might consider Justin Gustainis‘s Occult Crimes Unit series, which is set in Scranton, Paul Cornell‘s Shadow Police series, set in London, Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series (also set in London, natch) or even Jaye Wells‘s Prospero’s War series. (Ignore the horrible covers of the OCU series–I found the books as good as their covers are hideous.)

Characters: Detective First Grade Domenica Kiernan, Detective Third Grade Liam Grullon, Detective First Grade Luis Ortega, Sergeant Hawkins, Detective Third Grade Sofia Umali, Lieutenant Stanislaus Majorowicz, Basia, Jurienny Feliz, Samuel Adams ‘Hops’ Jones, Samwise ‘Frodo’ Jones, Sergeant Dylan Herrera, Elias Vondelikos, Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskya, Lane Thibodeaux, Bobby Kiernan, Imanol, Valapart, Zhang Wei, Amanda Cornwell, Garth Ohlmeyer, Farid Anand, Nicholas McManus Quinn, Jacques ‘Jake the Jake’ Buddan, Jack Taylor, Stephanie Taylor, Chandan Venkatesh, Valery Leybenzon, Catalina Mercado, Amira Mireles, City Comptroller Brandon Kogan

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Cover design and illustrations by Jeff Wong

Rating: 8.5/10

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