Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts

The Case Files of Erik Rugar

De: Misha Burnett

Narrado por: Brandon McKernan

It’s hard to fight wizards and demons when all you have is a gun and a badge.

The use of magic in the sovereign city of Dracoheim is regulated by the Lord Mayor's Committee for Public Safety. From the licensing of magi, to the health and safety requirements for magical manufacturing, to the import and export of goods to the Realms of Nightmare, dedicated civil servants ensure that the metropolitan area stays safe from magical mayhem.

Most of the time, anyway.

My name is Erik Rugar. I’m an agent of the Criminal Investigation Division of CPS. We operate outside of the authority of Parliament and are answerable only to the Lord Mayor himself. We get involved when the regular beat cops are out of their depth. If a magic shop gets robbed by junkies, or someone gets vaporized by a fireball, or shapechanging creatures start infiltrating the city, I get the call.

But I’m not a mage; I’m just a cop. I face down magical threats with my keen investigative skills and a trusty revolver. Welcome to my world.

Includes the short story “In the City of Dreadful Joy”, third-place winner of the 2019 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award!

About the author: Misha Burnett has been writing poetry and fiction for around 40 years. His first four novels Catskinner's Book, Cannibal Hearts, The Worms of Heaven, and Gingerbread Wolves comprise a series The Book of Lost Doors. Major influences include Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, William Burroughs, and Phillip K. Dick.

©2019 Misha Burnett (P)2020 Misha Burnett

Urban Fantasy Detective with some Horror

The stories all follow Erik Rugar, a detective who investigates magical crimes for the city government. I imagined the setting as 1930s/1940s America (as depicted in a Humphrey Bogart movie), but with magical elements thrown in. I’ve decided not to comment on the collection story-by-story as I normally do, because I feel I might give too much away or alternatively be too vague, so instead I’ll try to give you the overall feel of the book. Rugar typically gets called out on a case that would be a normal opening for a detective story: a burglary, missing person, murder, kidnapping, heist, etc.. From those beginnings, the collection alternates between two different types of stories. Every other story has the detective tracking down leads and hunting the perpetrator, but things get complicated because magic was used to commit the crime or cover tracks. The remaining stories lean more towards horror, where the initial crime unleashes something on the unsuspecting city. I’m not talking about doll with a little girl’s voice horror, or ghost behind you in the mirror horror. I’m talking about hide in the closet and point a shotgun at the door horror. I’m talking about wipe the city off the map horror. If you think you’d enjoy urban fantasy detective tales set almost a century ago, or if you like detective stories bleeding over into horror, then I highly recommend this collection.