In Plain Sight

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S IN PLAIN SIGHT ABOUT?
Alex Lockerby is a P.I. in the late 1930's New York. He occasionally consults with the police, but most of them don't respect him. Generally, he's taking small-time jobs (lost pets, etc.) to make ends meet—and it's largely because his gorgeous secretary finds those jobs for him.

Oh, Alex is a Runewright—by drawing elaborate designs in a (generally) special ink and then setting the drawing on fire he activates various things—finding charms, disguises, a way to look at the past of a room/item, healing, etc.

His ability doesn't necessarily mean riches aplenty or fame—it means that he has an edge in certain circumstances, but that's it.

In this novel, Alex is dealing with three cases—a distraught young woman hires him to look for a missing brother. A case he consulted on for the police didn't go the way he said it would, and he has only three days to fix the problem or he'll be charged with something and his friend on the force will be unemployed. And, a local church's soup kitchen—volunteers, priests, nuns, and those being fed–are killed by an impossibly fast-moving disease, and Alex (with the guidance of his medical doctor mentor) needs to track down the source of the disease.

The clock is ticking to deal with all three of these—also in the mix are the NYPD, the FBI, a powerful sorcerer, and an ages-old secret that threatens to destabilize the magic world.

MAGIC SYSTEM
There are, we're told, three types of magic users in this world: Alchemists, Sorcerers, and Runewrights. We don't get to see a lot of Alchemy (but we hear a little about it). We see enough of Sorcery to get a pretty good idea what it's like. But the star of the show is the use of and making of Runes.

Willis's version of Runes are similar to Hearne's Sigils, but it's only similar (various wizards, witches, and other magic users from various UF series are more similar than these, though).

I liked the way that all three versions of magic are used, and interweave with each other. Also, while various magic users aren't necessarily esteemed (Alex is dismissively called “scribbler”, for example), they're all out in the open, selling their services, both on small scales and large scales.

We need more UF where the magic is out in the open—all the various series with a dozen different ways that the magic (and so on) is hidden from the general populace is getting tired. Magic being an everyday thing, something commercial...I like seeing that.

1930'S P.I.
We're supposed to get a hard-boiled P.I.-feel from Alex here. Philip Marlowe with magic, kind of a thing. It's close, but it feels sanitized. Safe. Really, Alex Lockerby is more Dixon Hill than Marlowe or Sam Spade.

I'm not saying I didn't like the idea or the execution—I enjoyed it. It just felt tame.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT IN PLAIN SIGHT
This was fun—inventive, cleverly told, and a premise/magic system that is a breath of fresh air.

I appreciated Willis' voice and style—I do wish he'd made things a bit more nuanced, a bit harder to figure out (although there is a reveal late in the book that took me by surprise), but it's the first book—a setup for the series as a whole, and that's not easy to do.

There's a lot of charm to the writing and the characters, I can easily see this series becoming a favorite, until then, this was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and the rest of the series looks to be the same. I'm looking forward to diving into the rest, and suspect you would be as entertained as I was.

In Plain Sight by Dan Willis

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This is a well-written, well-conceived bit of urban fantasy. The setting is a parallel 1930s New York. Alex Lockerby is a private investigator living hand to mouth by taking cases that come his way and occasionally consulting for the NYPD.

He's also a “runewright.” In this version of the world, there are two kinds of magic. One kind involves the writing of runes - which are arcane geometric drawings that when ignited can perform all kinds of useful magic. The other is sorcery whereby sorcerers control elemental power, such as electricity or cold. People who can write runes are rare, but sorcerers are even rarer and far, far more powerful because while runes fade away over time, sorcery does not.

Willis follows the standard hardboiled detective format pioneered by Hammet and Chandler by stringing together three apparently unconnected plot lines and adding a femme fatale. Except that this detective is far too nice and generous to be Sam Spade or Phillip Marlow. This story does not involve a question of existential evil, rather evil is plainly identifiable on one side, and Lockerby is on the other side, helping widows and orphans.

The plot is engaging and it works. When I thought we were done, Willis added in a wrinkle that took the story up a notch.

Obviously, this is the first installment of a series. Willis has introduced us to the main and supporting characters and did a nice job of grounding us in the setting of a 1930s that looks a lot like the one that our grandparents knew, but is wildly different.