There exists in this world a particular sort of reader—and if you have found your way here, you are almost certainly one of them—who believes that the only thing more delightful than a proper mystery is a mystery solved by someone who can speak to ghosts, cast spells, or transform into something with rather more teeth than is strictly conventional.
For such adventurous souls, we have assembled here a most extraordinary collection of detective urban fantasy novels, where the streets are shadowed with secrets both mortal and magical, and the investigators who walk them are anything but ordinary.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Beginning with Storm Front
In the great city of Chicago, where the wind blows cold off the lake and the shadows hold more than darkness, there works a man named Harry Dresden. His card proclaims him a wizard, and indeed he is—the only one bold enough to advertise his peculiar services in the telephone directory.
Harry operates much as those hard-boiled detectives of old, consulting for the police when cases turn inexplicably strange, which in his experience is rather often. Armed with a wooden staff, a leather duster, and a wit sharper than any blade, he navigates a world where vampires hold grudges and faeries keep to their bargains with terrible precision. The series spans more than seventeen volumes, each more thrilling than the last.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Also known as Midnight Riot
Probationary Constable Peter Grant had always hoped to become a detective, though he never imagined it would involve learning Latin from a gentleman who fought at Waterloo. When Peter discovers he can perceive ghosts—a talent the Metropolitan Police Service finds unexpectedly useful—he becomes apprentice to Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last officially sanctioned wizard in England.
What follows is a most delicious blend of police procedural and supernatural investigation, where the rivers of London are literally governed by goddesses, and crimes must be solved according to both the laws of the land and the ancient customs of magic. The humour is dry, the London setting impeccably researched, and Peter’s voice utterly winning.
The October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire
Beginning with Rosemary and Rue
October “Toby” Daye is what the fae call a changeling—half human, half faerie, and trusted fully by neither side. Once a knight errant of Faerie and a private investigator besides, she has tried to leave that world behind, but Faerie, like all the best troubles, refuses to be forgotten.
When a dying countess binds Toby with her final breath to solve her murder, our reluctant heroine must return to the courts and politics she’d abandoned. Set in San Francisco, where the mortal city and the faerie realm exist side by side, this series has earned multiple Hugo Award nominations and the devotion of readers who appreciate heroines both stubborn and tenderhearted.
The Felix Castor Series by Mike Carey
Beginning with The Devil You Know
In London—though not quite the London you know—the dead began rising around the turn of the millennium. Not violently, mind you, but persistently, refusing to stay decently buried and making nuisances of themselves in all sorts of inconvenient ways.
Enter Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist who plays his tin whistle to bind and banish spirits. He is quintessentially British—dry-humoured, morally complicated, and perpetually underfunded. His investigations into the supernatural take him through a city that is equal parts grimy realism and gothic horror. This series has been praised as darker and more sophisticated than its contemporaries, with the atmosphere of a proper noir wrapped in supernatural dread.
The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews
Beginning with Magic Bites
In an Atlanta transformed by magical catastrophe, where waves of magic and technology alternate in dominance, Kate Daniels makes her living as a mercenary. She is fierce, sarcastic, and hiding secrets that could destroy her. When her guardian is murdered, Kate must navigate between the Pack—a paramilitary clan of shapeshifters—and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers who pilot vampires like gruesome puppets.
The world-building is magnificently inventive, the action sequences breathless, and the slow-burning romance has readers turning pages well past their bedtimes. The series reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list and has earned the devotion of countless urban fantasy enthusiasts.
The Nightside Series by Simon R. Green
Beginning with Something from the Nightside
Hidden in the heart of London lies the Nightside—a square mile of perpetual darkness where it is always three in the morning, where you can buy anything if your nerve holds, and where John Taylor works as a private investigator. His particular talent? He can find anything.
The Nightside is a place of dangerous wonders, where myths drink beside monsters and the laws of reality are mere suggestions. Taylor’s cases drag him through this impossible landscape, encountering characters both terrifying and darkly amusing. New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher himself has praised it as “a macabre and thoroughly entertaining world.”
The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs
Beginning with Moon Called
Mercedes Thompson repairs Volkswagens in Washington State, which would be unremarkable except for her ability to transform into a coyote and her habit of befriending werewolves, vampires, and various fae. When trouble arrives—as it does with suspicious regularity—Mercy finds herself investigating supernatural disturbances that threaten both the magical community and the oblivious humans living beside them.
Mercy is beloved for her courage, her independence, and her refusal to be intimidated by creatures far more powerful than herself. Patricia Briggs has crafted fourteen books in this series, each deepening the world and the relationships that make readers feel quite at home among the monsters.
The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold
The Fetch Phillips Archives
In Sunder City, magic has died—not faded, but been murdered—and Fetch Phillips carries the guilt of it. Once there were vampires who lived centuries and elves whose beauty stole breath from mortal lungs. Now they are broken things, and Fetch, a human private investigator, takes their cases as a kind of penance.
This debut novel from actor Luke Arnold has been compared to “the illegitimate love child of Terry Pratchett and Dashiell Hammett.” The world-building is rich with melancholy, the mystery compelling, and Fetch Phillips himself a damaged, beating heart of a protagonist trying desperately to make amends for sins he can never undo.
The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton
Beginning with Guilty Pleasures
Anita Blake is a necromancer, a vampire executioner licensed by the state, and not someone to be trifled with. In an alternate America where vampires have legal rights and zombies can be raised for testimony, Anita navigates the dangerous intersection of the supernatural underworld and human law.
Published in 1993, Guilty Pleasures helped establish the urban fantasy genre as we know it. Anita is fierce, capable, and refreshingly unintimidated by the powerful creatures she encounters. The series blends hardboiled detective fiction with supernatural horror, creating a template that countless books have since followed.
The Laundry Files by Charles Stross
Beginning with The Atrocity Archives
Bob Howard works for the Laundry, a secret British government agency that handles occult threats—which sounds rather glamorous until you realize it involves endless paperwork, byzantine bureaucracy, and the occasional Lovecraftian horror trying to devour reality.
This series is utterly unique, combining computational magic (mathematics as sorcery), spy thriller conventions, workplace comedy, and cosmic horror into something both hilarious and genuinely frightening. The Concrete Jungle won the Hugo Award, and the series itself has been nominated for Best Series. If you’ve ever suspected that office politics and eldritch abominations share certain qualities, this is the series for you.
The Remy Chandler Series by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Beginning with A Kiss Before the Apocalypse
Remy Chandler is a private investigator in Boston with a most unusual secret: he is actually Remiel, a seraphim who chose to leave Heaven and live among mortals. He can speak any language, render himself invisible, and hear thoughts when he listens carefully—though he prefers to solve his cases through more conventional detective work when possible.
This series explores themes of redemption, mortality, and what it means to choose humanity over divinity. Fans of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files will find themselves quite at home with these “hard-boiled noir fantasy” tales that are by turns funny, unsettling, and heartbreaking.
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
Ivy Gamble is a private investigator with no magic whatsoever—a fact that stings particularly when her estranged twin sister teaches at a prestigious academy for young mages. When a faculty member dies under suspicious circumstances, Ivy is hired to investigate, plunging her into a world of magic she’s spent her life resenting.
This novel is a poignant meditation on jealousy, family, and the lies we tell ourselves. Kirkus Reviews called it “a poignant and bittersweet family tragedy disguised as a mystery.” The magical school setting is refreshingly unglamorous—worn linoleum, dented lockers, and teachers with all too human grudges—making the supernatural elements all the more striking.
The Curse Workers Series by Holly Black
Beginning with White Cat
In Cassel Sharpe’s world, curse workers—people who can alter luck, memory, emotion, or even reality with a touch—are criminals by law and often by profession. His family runs cons and works for crime bosses; Cassel himself believes he has no magic at all, just an inherited talent for deception and a terrible secret he can barely face.
White Cat has been described as having “a definite Sopranos-style vibe” crossed with urban fantasy, and Cassel is a protagonist of remarkable moral complexity. Holly Black’s writing is crisp and witty, and the crime family dynamics make for deliciously twisty plotting. Kirkus called it “a dark, complex Chinese puzzle box, full of cons, criminals and curses.”
The Eric Carter Series by Stephen Blackmoore
Beginning with Dead Things
Eric Carter is a necromancer who speaks to the dead, exorcises ghosts for hire, and has made powerful enemies in Los Angeles’s magical underworld. When his sister is murdered, Eric returns to the city he fled fifteen years ago to find her killer—a search that entangles him with gangsters, vengeful spirits, and Santa Muerte herself, the goddess of death.
Kevin Hearne called this “the L.A.-noir urban fantasy you’ve been looking for,” and indeed the series delivers demons, dark magic, and moral ambiguity in generous measure. The prose has been praised as “sharp as a razor,” and Eric Carter himself described as bringing “pitch-black paranormal noir” to vivid, disturbing life.
Finding Your Next Supernatural Sleuth
The beauty of detective urban fantasy lies in its marriage of two beloved traditions: the satisfaction of a mystery solved and the wonder of a world where magic pulses just beneath the surface of the everyday. Whether you prefer your investigators to be wizards consulting for the police, shapeshifters caught between worlds, or fallen angels seeking redemption, there is a series here waiting to capture your imagination.
These books remind us that the greatest mysteries are those that reveal not just whodunit, but what it means to be human—or something wonderfully, dangerously other—in a world more strange and beautiful than we ever suspected.
Now go forth, dear reader, and find your next adventure. The night is dark, the magic is real, and somewhere in the shadows, a detective with extraordinary gifts is waiting to solve the unsolvable.
