Alex Bledsoe’s initial novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, drew rave evaluations for its ingenious blend of illusion and hard-boiled detective fiction. Today Bledsoe earnings with another tale of mean streets and medieval intrigue.

Above Angelina’s Tavern in down-and-dirty Neceda, you’ll find any office of Eddie LaCrosse. He’s a scruffy freelance sword jockey who, for twenty-five precious metal pieces per day plus expenditures, will handle any problem lacking murder for hire. Eddie’s on his in the past from a program about Burn off Me Deadly analysis when his horse almost runs down a half-naked blonde in severe problems. Against his better view, he promises to safeguard the frightened youthful woman, only to find himself waylaid by unidentified assailants and still left for lifeless beside her mutilated body.

Eddie isn’t the type of man to just permit something similar to this pass. But who killed Laura Lesperitt? Eddie’s quest for payback leads him to a tangled mystery involving a notorious crime lord, a backwoods dragon cult, royal scandals, and a duplicitous femme fatale that has problems keeping her clothes on. As bodies pile up, Eddie must use all his wits if he expectations to survive.