Black Gate

Daniel José Older’s first Bone Street Rumba novel, Half-Resurrection Blues, was one of the most acclaimed novels of the year, selected as one of the Best Fantasy Books of 2015 by BuzzFeed, Barnes & Noble, and other fine establishments.

The second in the series, Midnight Taxi Tango, will be released in paperback next month. If you’re a regular reader at Tor.com, you’ve probably already sampled it, as portions were originally published there as three original short stories: “Anyway: Angie,” “Kia and Gio,” and “Ginga.”

The streets of New York are hungry tonight…

Carlos Delacruz straddles the line between the living and the not-so alive. As an agent for the Council of the Dead, he eliminates New York’s ghostlier problems. This time it’s a string of gruesome paranormal accidents in Brooklyn’s Von King Park that has already taken the lives of several locals — and is bound to take more.

The incidents in the park have put Kia on edge. When she first met Carlos, he was the weird guy who came to Baba Eddie’s botánica, where she worked. But the closer they’ve gotten, the more she’s seeing the world from Carlos’s point of view. In fact, she’s starting to see ghosts. And the situation is far more sinister than that — because whatever is bringing out the dead, it’s only just getting started.

Midnight Taxi Tango will be published by Roc on January 5, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions. Sadly, the gorgeous cover art is uncredited.

Read the first chapter at Tor.com.

Marshall Ryan Maresca’s debut novel, The Thorn of Dentonhill, followed the adventures of Veranix Calbert, diligent college student by day and crime-fighting vigilante by night, in the crime-ridden districts of the port city of Maradaine. Library Journal said, “Veranix is Batman, if Batman were a teenager and magically talented,” and that’s not far off. Now comes word that the seqel, The Alchemy of Chaos, arrives from DAW in February, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Veranix Calbert is The Thorn — the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil.

But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student. With his academic career — and future as a mage — riding on his performance, Veranix needs to devote himself entirely to studying and participating in a fellow student’s thesis experiments. There’s no time to go after Fenmere or the Red Rabbits.

Then a series of strange pranks begin to plague the campus, using a form of magic that Veranix doesn’t recognize. As the pranks grow increasingly deadly, it becomes clear that there’s someone with a vendetta against the university, and The Thorn may be the only one capable of stopping them. Between the prankster, the war brewing between the Aventil gangs, and the flamboyant assassins Fenmere has hired to kill him, Veranix may end up dead before the week is out. Which just might be preferable to taking his exams….

Maresca’s second novel, A Murder of Mages, began a second series set in Maradaine. The sequel, An Import if Intrigue, the second novel of The Maradaine Constabulary, is coming Fall 2016.

The Alchemy of Chaos, the second volume of The Maradaine Series, will be published by DAW on February 2, 2016. It is 400 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the print and digital versions. The cover is by Paul Young.

Peter McLean’s first novel will be released in paperback by Angry Robot in early January, and it sounds pretty darn good.

Don’t believe me? Drake features a hitman who owes a gambling debt to a demon, his faithful magical accomplice The Burned Man (an imprisoned archdemon), the Furies of Greek myth, an (almost) fallen angel named Trixie, and oh, yeah. Lucifer. Dave Hutchinson calls it “a gritty, grungy, funny, sweary noir thriller with added demons. Don Drake is a wonderful creation.” I told you it sounded good. Drake is the opening installment in a new series titled The Burned Man.

Hitman Don Drake owes a gambling debt to a demon. Forced to carry out one more assassination to clear his debt, Don unwittingly kills an innocent child and brings the Furies of Greek myth down upon himself.

Rescued by an almost-fallen angel called Trixie, Don and his magical accomplice The Burned Man, an imprisoned archdemon, are forced to deal with Lucifer himself whilst battling a powerful evil magician.

Now Don must foil Lucifer’s plan to complete Trixie’s fall and save her soul whilst preventing the Burned Man from breaking free from captivity and wreaking havoc on the entire world.

Drake will be published by Angry Robot on January 5, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The very cool cover is by Raid71. Learn more at the Angry Robot website.

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