Via an interview between Newton and Rowena Cory Daniells:
The lead character, Lucan Drakenfeld, is a bit like a young lawyer-slash-detective, and certainly the polar opposite of a private eye (if anything, he’s a public eye). I’m really trying to steer away from noir pastiche because I feel that would be disrespectful to crime readers. The book is as much a crime novel as it is a fantasy novel. Imagine a mainstream writer trying their hand at a fantasy novel, and filled it with a paint-by-numbers story – they’d be strung up by the fanbase, which is why I’m not doing a paint-by-numbers crime novel, either.
Very much looking forward to this. Glad to see, also, that Newton’s a smart enough fellow to actively avoid falling into the tropes and cliches of the noir/crime genre. Some of the best moments on Newton’s first novel, Nights of Villjamur were the noirish mystery elements fused with Fantasy in investigator Rumex Jeryd’s storyline. Newton is playing to his strengths by embracing that kind of character and story (even if Jeryd did sometimes fall into those recognizable tropes that Newton refers to in this latest interview.)
