8 Intriguing Dark Fantasy Noir Novels

This Body’s Not Big Enough for the Both of Us, by Edgar Cantero
Someone in the wretched hive of San Carnal is killing the sons of the Lyon, a ruthless Cartel boss. On the case are A. and Z. Kimrean, a formidable brother-and-sister private investigator team who unfortunately (for them) happen to share a single body between them. Cantero’s third English-language novel makes its intentions clear from the jump with a joke about Elmore Leonard’s rules of fiction writing, lunging forward in his trademark style as it switches back and forth between a script-format police interrogation with the Kimrean siblings and their narration of the case itself, a frothy, seedy adventure packed to the brim with (intentional) noir clichés, tough talkers, gunfights, ninjas, and all the lurid descriptions of people across the gender spectrum than anyone could ask for. Like Cantero’s other novels, Body approaches its subject with snark, blending chaotic action and comedy into a crime novel that treats its subject with affectionate charm while poking it with skewers.

The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry
In a bizarre city that seems stuck in a perpetually rainy day in the 1930s, clerk Charles Unwin is suddenly promoted to the position of Inspector at his monolithic detective agency. His job is to solve the disappearance of the agency’s star detective, Travis T. Sivart, whose absence may threaten to upset the balance of power in the city, and whose greatest cases might have been solved incorrectly. It wouldn’t be a detective story without numerous twists and turns, and by the time Berry’s surrealistic city noir reaches its conclusion, it’s unclear whether the city is even fully real, whether the Agency is on the level, or exactly who (if anyone) is on Unwin’s side. This weirdness just enhances a terrific mystery that’s really an examination of the very nature of mysteries.

Night Fall, by Simon R. Green
All good things must eventually come to an end, and Simon R. Green sends off his long-running urban fantasy universe with a bang. For the longest time, the Droods, a supernatural intelligence organization, has kept an uneasy truce with the Nightside, a hidden area of London where it’s always three AM, where you can find everything from a homeless god of the Wild Hunt to a goth bartender descended from Merlin. But the Nightside represents chaos at its most unchecked, and as agents of order, the Droods must finally bring it to heel, kicking off an intense magical clash that drags in factions from all over the multiverse. While the main attraction is the climactic end to two long-running series (Secret History and the Nightside), Green’s grand finale calls in fan favorites from all over (including Shadows Fall and the Ghost Finders series), bringing the weirdest and most expansive supernatural noir universe to a satisfying close.

Noir, by Christopher Moore
Bartender and part-time fixer Sammy “Two-Toes” Tiffin’s life has taken a turn for the weird. A woman nicknamed “the Cheese” takes up a spot at his bar and an unusual interest in him, his boss orders him to procure “entertainment” for a visiting general from Roswell, he’s trying to get a line on exotic animals from shady dockworkers, and the kid he hired to be his assistant is getting on his nerves again. But what Tiffin doesn’t know is that his life is about to get a lot stranger still, as his schemes spiral out of control, forcing him into clashes with aliens, mobsters, the US government, Bohemian Grove, and a rather nasty poisonous snake. Along the way, he’s aided and abetted by his best friend, a nightclub worker named Eddie Moo Shoes. Moore’s never shied away from exploring the city he loves as it truly is (at least in his outsized imagination), and that warts-and-all approach lends Noir authenticity, delving into both the fantasy and reality of 1940s San Francisco while delivering an absurd detective story that ranks with the author’s best.

Hammers on Bone, by Cassandra Khaw
A young man walks into a private investigator’s office and asks him to kill his stepfather, because said stepfather is “a monster.” At first, John Persons is hesitant. He doesn’t do wet jobs intentionally, and he’s not going to kill based on the orders of some half-pint. But the kid’s clearly mixed up in something dark and dangerous, and it is clear the boy knows Persons is more than just the average investigator. Persons is willing to think of it as a standard abuse case, until a factory foreman he’s pumping for information grows six mouths and a set of eyes on his neck. It turns out the stepdad isn’t the human kind of monster, but the literal kind, making the case perfect for Persons, who isn’t exactly a garden-variety beast himself. Khaw’s novella is as visceral, grimy, and terse as the best of Mike Hammer and Charlie Huston, bringing the detective story back to its morally gray roots.

Diana Tregarde Investigates, by Mercedes Lackey
Lackey’s stories following Diana Tregarde, a famed romance novelist and “Guardian” who solves supernatural crimes and dispatches all manner of occult threats are arguably the prototype for the paranormal investigator genre. This omnibus, collecting the first three novels, sees Diana fighting psychic vampires while running an occult shop, discovering the terrible secret behind a high school’s “it girl,” and aiding a psychic police detective as he solves a series of supernatural murders tied to cattle mutilations. While the books have all the hallmarks of the genre they would go on to inspire, Diana’s wry sense of humor, the focus on building complex characters, and Lackey’s willingness to show things from the villains’ twisted point of view go a long way to explain why the dark fantasy noir is still so prevalent.

The Body Library, by Jeff Noon
Noon’s second Nyquist novel finds the erstwhile detective in a city governed by the principles of narrative and story, forced by an odd group of villains to act as the detective in a noir. It’s a role Nyquist is uniquely suited to, and it might also give him a story he can hand off to the authorities so they’ll leave him alone. Nyquist’s quest to find out what happened to a murdered woman and track down a mysterious book known as The Body Library sets him at odds with the narrative itself, as he fights desperately against being stuck in the role of a heroic detective in a cruel world and whatever odd designs the book has on him. Taken together, Noon’s grim sense of humor and the labyrinthine plot form a perfect interrogation of the narrative conventions of the detective story, creating a tongue-in-cheek narrative that critiques without necessarily deconstructing.

Hell’s Horizon, by Darren Shan
Al Jeery is a loyal soldier of the Cardinal, the mysterious overlord of a city known only as “The City.” When he’s pulled off of security detail to investigate a brutal murder with ties to the strange Incan cult operating within the City, he thinks nothing of it, and immediately goes to work, aided by both the Cardinal’s consigliere and a retired police officer with a talent for putting clues together. Unfortunately, the murders are only the tip of a dark-as-pitch iceberg. Jeery soon finds himself at odds with a sadistic immortal serial killer, the city’s ubiquitous secret societies, rival gangs, and wealthy elites. In Shan’s practiced hands, this makes for a twisty, dark, violent, and occasionally horrifying noir, as Jeery uncovers how far the City’s power players are willing to go, and exactly what dark forces operate within its borders.