Fin­ished The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bled­soe. This is the first book in his series about Eddie LaCrosse, a sort of Sam Spade pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor in a fan­tasy world.

Eddie LaCrosse is a self-proclaimed “sword jockey” or pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor who is try­ing to for­get his tragic past. But when his child­hood friend, King Philip, calls on Eddie to prove that Philip’s wife, Rhi­an­non, didn’t mur­der their infant son, Eddie feels oblig­ated to take the job. His quest for the truth takes him through sev­eral king­doms — and puts him in great dan­ger, as well as stir­ring up mem­o­ries of the past that he’d rather forget.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It’s like an epic fan­tasy film noir, and you can almost see the whole thing unfold­ing in black and white a la The Mal­tese Fal­con. It’s got that kind of cool, world-weary vibe to it. Eddie is a great char­ac­ter, and the mys­tery is very well done. It will keep you guess­ing until the end, then you’ll kick your­self for not see­ing the clues ear­lier. It’s that good.

My only lit­tle quib­ble was the whole god­dess angle. I won’t spoil what hap­pens here, but I thought that Eddie’s past with one of the char­ac­ters was maybe just a lit­tle too con­ve­nient and pointed him in the right direc­tion maybe just a lit­tle too eas­ily. (But hey, I’ve done it myself as an author, so I can’t say too much about it).

Seri­ously, though, if you like film noir, you need to read this book. Big thumbs up.

Note: Burn Me Deadly, the next book in the series, comes out in Novem­ber. I’ll be get­ting it for Whee­z­ley for Christ­mas — if I don’t steal it and read it myself first.

Up next: Too Good to be True by Kris­tan Higgins.

Books in my TBR pile: About 14.