Trench Coats and Spell Casters: 5 Detectives in Urban Fantasy

Kevin Wohler Posted on by
John Constantine from DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

This month, John Constantine, the Vertigo comics bad boy supernatural detective is coming back to television as a regular in the cast of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on the CW. If you’re a fan of Constantine, you probably can’t get enough of his wise-cracking, devil-may-care attitude and his penchant for finding demonic mayhem. But Constantine is far from alone. 

Contemporary fantasy (and the urban fantasy subgenre) is filled with tough main characters who seem to be plucked from a Raymond Chandler novel. Maybe he’s a detective, a wizard-for-hire, or a professor. He’s probably packing more than a pistol beneath his trench coat.

Harry Dresden, The Dresden Files

I can’t discuss this topic without a nod to Harry Dresden. A blend of magic and hardboiled pulp fiction, Storm Front (2000) by Jim Butcher has become the definitive modern-day wizard-as-detective story. Working in modern day Chicago, Harry has everything a modern wizard needs, including a staff, a cloak, and a disembodied comedic sidekick, Bob, who lives in a skull.

When people ask me what I read, this is most likely to be the character who gets people not familiar with the genre to nod in recognition. It helps that The Dresden Files received the small-screen treatment in the much-maligned Syfy television series of the same name. 

John Taylor, Nightside series

Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green was my introduction to urban fantasy. Although not as well-known as Harry Dresden, John Taylor seems to be cut from a similar cloth. Taylor is a detective who uses his supernatural gift to find lost things. The problem is that when he uses his third eye, he becomes visible to some people/things he’d rather hide from.

The Nightside world is a dark, nightmarish version of London where fantasy and science fiction come head-to-head. The world Green creates is rich with detail and a wide variety of characters, from angels to assassins and everything in between.

Everson Croft, Prof Croft series

In Brad Magnarella’s Demon Moon, Everson Croft breaks the detective-wizard trope by hiding his wizarding life behind the respectable veneer of a college professor. Even so, his life isn’t easy. Following The Crash, New York turned upside down. Vampires are running Wall Street and ghouls haunt the less desirable neighborhoods looking for unsuspecting prey. It’s all Everson can do to keep wanna-be magicians from summoning up demons in seedy hotels and rundown apartment buildings. 

When he’s not teaching a class, Everson helps out the NYPD now and then, as a consultant. It’s a thankless job that puts his life and reputation on the line again and again, but he handles it all with a heroic need to save the innocent. Magnarella does a good job of bringing a new spin to the genre.

Sam Hunter, Sam Hunter Case Files

While there are a lot of urban fantasy novels that deal with private detectives (or near detectives), I sometimes enjoy shorter fiction. To my delight, Jonathan Maberry (famous for his V-Wars series, which will be coming to Netflix soon) has given readers a wonderful collection, Beneath the Skin: The Sam Hunter Case Files. The stories deal with Sam, a werewolf who happens to also be a private investigator.

For those not familiar with Sam, he’s about as hardboiled as they come. He has the analytical mind of a detective, but when he unleashes the wolf all bets are off. The stories might be classified as dark fantasy or horror rather than urban fantasy. Either way, Sam is a supernatural detective worthy of inclusion on this list.

Griffin Shaw, Celestial Blues series

I’m not one to read any romance genre, but the 1960s-detective-returned-as-angel premise was too good to pass up. In Vicki Pettersson’s The Taken, Griffin teams up with Kit Craig, who (aside from being a Las Vegas reporter) is also in danger. Because it’s a paranormal romance, the point-of-view alternates between the two main characters.

Though Griffin’s angelic abilities are not exactly center stage, he nails the hardboiled private eye role. Of course, that’s probably because he was a P.I. before his death. He looks at the modern world through a filter of the past, but adapts pretty well to the current state of things.

If you enjoy these characters, you might want to check out my novels in The Village Alchemist series, featuring Malcolm Ward—an immortal alchemist and small business owner. The Alchemist’s Notebook is currently available. The Alchemist’s Stone will be released in October 2018 by Bottle Cap Publishing.

Dream. And Keep Dreaming.

Kevin Wohler Posted on by

Things have been pretty rough for our world lately. We have a lot of bad news assaulting our eyes and ears day in and day out, through a 24-hour news cycle. So I wanted to take a quick moment to talk about a recent experience that reminded me of the small miracles that come in our everyday lives.

A few days ago, Facebook gave me one of those “On This Day” reminders that seven years ago I had brought home my new Honda Element.

Nothing too fancy, but it was the first car I’ve owned with SiriusXM satellite radio (this will be important later). I like my car, and since that day, we’ve traveled across this great country, both to California and to Florida (twice).

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Believing the Impossible

Kevin Wohler Posted on by

American GodsThis month I decided to reread Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to prepare for the upcoming television adaptation (debuting April 30th on Starz in the U.S.). Because I have a long commute, I listened to the audiobook American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (A Full Cast Production).

If you haven’t read American Gods, I highly recommend it. Neil Gaiman is my favorite living author, and this novel is one of his best. (I think The Ocean at the End of the Lane is my favorite.)

For those not familiar with this lengthy work, I will sum it up thusly:

The gods of the old world, who were brought to America’s shores by its immigrant population over the centuries, are forced to contend for their existence in a country where belief is in short supply. They must face off against a host of new gods, the product of American culture and the electronic age.

As a result, I started thinking a lot about belief. I’ve always been what I consider “rational,” devoted to facts. If you make an extraordinary claim, I’m likely to demand proof. I actually consider myself a skeptic. But there’s another side of me, one that exists along side the rational, which is open to a world of possibilities.

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.”
~ Samantha Black Crow, American Gods

My biography on social media (and this website) states that I believe in “heroes, magic, aliens, time travel, and infinite realities.” But that’s only the beginning. As Samantha Black Crow says to Shadow in American Gods, “I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.”

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Brand New Year, Brand New Cover

Kevin Wohler Posted on by

The Alchemist's Stone by Kevin WohlerI’ve been hard at work the past couple of months, trying to polish my latest novel. With luck, The Alchemist’s Stone will be coming your way soon. Because I’m confident it won’t be much longer, I’ve decided to share the cover art for it!

Picking up only a few months after the end of book one, The Alchemist’s Stone continues Malcolm’s quest to create a philosopher’s stone, the great work every alchemist must achieve to become a master of his craft. He also needs to deal with new responsibilities in his life, including his apprentice, Danny, a young man with the power to transform metals with a touch.

I love this new cover. It was designed by Clarissa Yeo at Yocla Designs. She did the cover for The Alchemist’s Notebook, too, and I think this is a wonderful complement to the original.

The Alchemist’s Stone is the second book in The Village Alchemist series. It is scheduled for a 2018 release, and it will be available exclusive to Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. It will also be available in paperback.

Until then, if you haven’t picked up The Alchemist’s Notebook, please do so! It is available exclusively at Amazon for the Kindle and Kindle Unlimited and as a trade paperback.

The Perils of Advanced Seating for Disabled Movie-goers

Kevin Wohler Posted on by

ADA poster

Historical Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) poster on movie theater accessibility.

Since I was a child, I’ve loved going to the movies. Because of my disability, the big screen has allowed me to escape reality and indulge in adventures I might not otherwise have. I’ve thrilled to each new innovation — from THX sound to IMAX screens to 4K digital projection. So it fills me with misgivings that the latest modernization to the movie-going experience has made it worse for me and others who use a wheelchair.

A Brief History of My Experiences in Movie Theaters

I’ve always been independent. For most of my youth, I enjoyed doing things like going to movies and malls on my own. It gave me a sense of autonomy. At theaters, I always transferred out of my wheelchair to take advantage of the theater seating. While not as plush as today’s luxury seating standards, it was still better than sitting in a wheelchair — especially when the theater’s center aisle was a steep ramp.

Over the years, I’ve fought my share of battles at the movie theater. For several years in the late 1980s and early ’90s, one local cinema chain repeatedly demanded that they take my wheelchair from me during the show for fear that it was blocking the aisle. That ended abruptly when I told the manager he could take my wheelchair if he left his legs as collateral. After all, what would I do if I had to leave to go to the bathroom or if there was an emergency? I couldn’t very well rely on someone making minimum wage to bring me my chair during a fire.

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