{"id":25517,"date":"2025-11-26T08:14:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T13:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=25517"},"modified":"2025-12-04T19:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T00:33:14","slug":"supernatural-crimes-unit-nypd-the-thin-blue-ley-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25517","title":{"rendered":"Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD: The Thin Blue Ley-Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD<\/em> (2025) Keith R. A. Decandido<\/p>\n

\"SupernaturalMonsters are real, and the NYPD has to deal with the ones who break the law. Thus was born the SCU, or Supernatural Crimes Unit.<\/p>\n

The SCU had been formed after a vampire named Bogdan Albescu killed a City Hall employee named John Rosario on the latter\u2019s way to work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Detective Kiernan closed the first case involving the supernatural, so she became one of the first detectives on the team, and others soon followed.<\/p>\n

I like Kiernan.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo you, maybe. But nobody\u2019s doin\u2019 nothin\u2019 here that they don\u2019t wanna do. And in my experience? Most people don\u2019t got any control over what turns them on. And also in my experience, people who repress themselves and don\u2019t do what they enjoy \u2019cause some asshole told \u2019em it was immoral are the ones who usually go out and do shit that we gotta arrest \u2019em for later.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

While there were benefits to being one of the lawyers for a powerful magic-user, Ohlmeyer\u2019s rudeness to the help in private was not one of them.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Anand had several responses to that but rejected all of them on the grounds that the client was always right\u2014especially when that client had the power to turn him into a newt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

Characters<\/strong>: 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 \u2018Hops\u2019 Jones, Samwise \u2018Frodo\u2019 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 \u2018Jake the Jake\u2019 Buddan, Jack Taylor, Stephanie Taylor, Chandan Venkatesh, Valery Leybenzon, Catalina Mercado, Amira Mireles, City Comptroller Brandon Kogan<\/p>\n

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing<\/p>\n

Cover design and illustrations by Jeff Wong<\/p>\n

Rating: 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD (2025) 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,897,292,204,8,42,148,34],"tags":[903,904],"class_list":["post-25517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-5-10","category-contemporary","category-ebook","category-good","category-mystery","category-police","category-queer","category-urban-fantasy","tag-keith-r-a-decandido","tag-supernatural-crimes-unit-nypd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-6Dz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3923,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3923","url_meta":{"origin":25517,"position":0},"title":"Hard Spell: An Occult Crimes Unit Investigation","author":"Michelle","date":"November 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Hard Spell An Occult Crimes Unit Investigation (2011) Justin Gustainis Stan Markowski is a Detective on the Scranton Police Supernatural Crimes Investigation Unit--they investigate crimes involving witches and vampires and other supernatural beings. Cops on the Supe Squad spend as much time investigating crimes committed against supes as we do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"hard-spell","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hard-spell-198x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22213,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/22213","url_meta":{"origin":25517,"position":1},"title":"Evil Dark","author":"Michelle","date":"September 17, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Evil Dark (2012) Justin Gustainis (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation) There's just something about an over-the-top supernatural police procedural. Pretend that there's a file folder somewhere, a big, thick one, labeled Real Bad Ideas. There's at least three things I can think of that belong in there \u2013 inviting a werewolf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Evil Dark","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/EvilDark-e1511017362369.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22172,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/22172","url_meta":{"origin":25517,"position":2},"title":"Hard Spell","author":"Michelle","date":"August 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Hard Spell (2011) Justin Gustainis (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation) This is the city \u2013 Scranton, Pennsylvania. My name's Markowski. I carry a badge. \u00a0\u00a0Also a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9 mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets. I put a vial containing fresh\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3957,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3957","url_meta":{"origin":25517,"position":3},"title":"Evil Dark","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Evil Dark (2012) Justin Gustainis Stan Markowski is still on the supe squad in Scranton, still looking into crime committed by and\/or against supernatural creatures, and this time a series of murders looks to be tied together, but the answer to cui bono is nowhere to be found. Like the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bad Cover"","block_context":{"text":"Bad Cover","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/bad"},"img":{"alt_text":"EvilDark","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/EvilDark-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4380,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4380","url_meta":{"origin":25517,"position":4},"title":"Known Devil","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Known Devil (2014) Justin Gustainis Stan Markowski is a Sergeant in the Occult Crimes Unit of the Scranton Police. His daughter and his partner are both vampires, but he doesn't hold that against them. (He can't, really, since it's his fault they're vampires.) 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Stan and Karl are taking their coffee break when a pair of elves attempt to hold up the diner where they are having their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Known Devil","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/KnownDevil-e1511019059932.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}