Lightning Runes

A stand-alone novel in the City of Shadows series.

Hardboiled Noir meets Urban Fantasy in a post-WWII Los Angeles where vampires, zombies, and demons are part of the social fabric.

Magic is just another way to get killed in the City of Angels.

Los Angeles, 1940s. The war is over, but the shadows are growing teeth. In this gritty Historical Urban Fantasy, detective work requires more than a badge and a .38. It requires an understanding of the runes that thrum beneath the pavement.

It started with a knock on the door. It usually does. Now there's a body, a missing musician, and a trail of magic that smells like ozone and bad luck. The LAPD is out of its depth. The "square" world is waking up to a reality they aren't prepared to handle.

Between the smoky jazz clubs of Central Avenue and the grease-stained floors of neighborhood garages, a new kind of power is rising. It's electric. It's ancient. And in the wrong hands, it's a death sentence for the whole city.

Harry Turtledove returns to the City of Shadows with a high-stakes mystery that stands entirely on its own. Whether you are a veteran of the series or stepping into this magical 1940s Los Angeles for the first time, the runes are waiting.

A Standalone Noir Tour de Force No "homework" required. Jump straight into the action with a self-contained mystery that delivers a complete, hardboiled experience from the first page to the last.

The Noir Reinvented

Experience a Los Angeles where spells are as common as reefers and the "fuzz" has to watch out for more than just lead. It's the Philip Marlowe detective story, transformed.

Masterful Alternate History

Nobody builds a world like Turtledove. Every detail of post-war life is rendered with surgical precision--until the magic starts to bleed through the cracks.

"Old Man Mose had been sleeping on the beat-up old sofa in my office. My fuzzy red accomplice is no braver than he has to be. He disappeared under the sofa, just in case."

The shadows are calling. Order your copy of this standalone Urban Fantasy mystery today.

Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: CAEZIK SF & Fantasy
Published: 05/11/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781647101770


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/19/2026

About the Author

Harry Turtledove, a New York Times bestselling author, has spent forty years dismantling reality to see why the wheels come off. Hugo and Sidewise Awards fill his mantle because he breaks facts for a living. Most people (including Publishers Weekly) call him the Master of Alternate History. That title is just a polite way of saying he is the only man who can make speculative dread feel like a peer-reviewed paper. Now he is applying that same grit to the supernatural with a Los Angeles that is full of vampires and gremlins living and working alongside us. Turtledove lives in the San Fernando Valley and treats these monsters like historical inevitabilities. Ancient demons and the ghosts of history both smell like old paper. This is a pivot by a man who already knows where the bodies are buried.