Book picks similar to
Absent Friends by Max Gladstone


serial
urban-fantasy
espionage
fantasy

The Wastelands (Dark Tower, #3)


Stephen King
    

The Time of the Warlock


Larry Niven - 1984
    Contains:Not Long Before the EndWhat Good is a Glass Dagger?The Magic Goes AwayUnfinished Story #1and:The Magic May ReturnNotes for a Series of Stories to be Set in the Fantasy World of The Magic Goes Away

Curse of the Phoenix (The Arcane Irregulars Book 1)


Dan Willis - 2021
    When one of his officers calls him out to an unusual crime scene, Danny realizes that it’s terrifyingly similar to something the department thought was dead and buried. Now he has to find a madman before the story hits the papers and the city explodes into chaos.Across town, Agent William “Buddy” Redhorn of the FBI has two problems. He’s been assigned a potentially career-ending case with magical ties, and his sorceress boss is out of town. The case involves a stolen statue that belongs to the government of Brunei, but the more he chases the thieves, the more bodies begin to drop. Bodies affected by a strange, unknown magic.Resolving to work together, Danny and Redhorn have to catch a cold-blooded killer, recover a stolen artifact, all while keeping everything out of the press. If they don’t, it will be more than their careers that will die when the curse of the Jade Phoenix descends on New York. Important Note: Curse of the Phoenix takes place in the Arcane Casebook universe. If you haven't read any of those, you might want to start there.

The Karma Code


Daniel Davidsohn
    Determined to uncover her uncle's murderer, Candice finds herself in need of protection from the same forces that led to her uncle's demise.In a fight for survival through Finland, Scotland, and the United States, Harry and Candice face the greed of investors and rogue agents, who all want to get their hands on what is being called the Karma Code, an experiment potentially capable of accessing a surviving consciousness and predicting a person's fate.Unless Harry and Candice can find someone to trust amid the treachery around them, they--and the Code--are in danger of disappearing for good."A cinematic style that keeps things tense, taught, and terminally in high gear. If you've got a thing for thrillers, you'll likely enjoy breaking The Karma Code." - The US Review of Books"Well written, fast paced, and intriguing."- Five Stars on Reader's Favourite

Preternatural Affairs, Books 4-7: Shadow Burns, Deadly Wrong, Ashes and Arsenic, and Once Darkness Falls


S.M. Reine - 2016
    From steamy Los Angeles to post-apocalyptic Reno, Cèsar's getting deeper into preternatural trouble by the moment. A collection of four New York Times bestselling author SM Reine's books. Included are Shadow Burns, Deadly Wrong, Ashes and Arsenic, and Once Darkness Falls. ABOUT SHADOW BURNS When more than a dozen people die at a retirement home, the official story is carbon monoxide poisoning. Cèsar Hawke is convinced the reason is less mundane and more infernal. But that’s his job. As an agent working for the Office of Preternatural Affairs, he’s always looking for supernatural answers to deadly questions. Isobel Stonecrow agrees to help him find the truth. With her powers of necrocognition, she can speak to the dead and get the real story. But when they return to the crime scene, they find a lot more than cadavers. They find a nightmare that they can’t escape—a nightmare from Isobel’s past, which even she can’t completely remember thanks to the contract that signed away her soul. Cèsar will have to disinter Isobel’s secrets to save her. He’ll learn who Isobel used to be, what she’s done, and the price she paid…no matter how deadly the knowledge might be. ABOUT DEADLY WRONG Isobel Stonecrow’s life has an expiration date: One month, two weeks, four days, and six hours remaining. Not that she’s counting. When she signed a contract giving her soul and memories to a demon named Ander, she didn’t expect that she would ever have to face termination. But now Ander is dead and she’ll be following suit if she can’t find a way to dissolve the deal. Too bad she can’t remember anything from the time before she signed the contract. Fritz Friederling, a billionaire demon hunter who owns several businesses in Hell, isn’t ready to give up on Isobel. But she isn’t sure that working with Fritz is better than dying. She doesn’t know much about her past life, but she knows that she signed Ander’s contract for a reason—and that getting away from Fritz was a significant part of it. Escaping her contract means remembering the life that she chose to forget. And it means trusting Fritz Friederling, who Isobel fears might be the biggest danger of all… ABOUT ASHES AND ARSENIC Agent Cèsar Hawke is in his element when he’s investigating magical crime. And with his boss out of town, Cèsar gets to pick which cases he works on. He’s bent on doing nothing involving demons, zombies, or fallen angels this time. Instead, he’s going to find the witch who used magic to rob a bank. Easy stuff. Cèsar plans to catch the perp before his boss gets home. But when he digs into the robbery, he finds much more than missing money. He also finds a deadly turf battle between two covens and a trail of bloody violence. A trail that leads directly to his brother, Domingo Hawke. Domingo wants Cèsar’s help taking down his enemies. Forget that Cèsar works for the Office of Preternatural Affairs, forget allegiances, forget pesky “contracts” and “conduct.” Domingo is calling in a favor and the Hawke family is too tight to refuse. Blood is the most powerful ingredient in any witch’s spell, after all… ABOUT ONCE DARKNESS FALLS The worst case scenario has happened: Reno NV has fallen to d

Sorcerer's Luck


Katharine Kerr - 2013
    Some she keeps from herself, like her mysterious talent for sorcery. Some she knows too well, like the rare disease that threatens to kill her-or someone else. When she meets Tor Thorlaksson, a sorcerer and runemaster, he seems to offer an escape from her deadly problems. But he knows secrets about them both, and these could turn her world upside-down.

Rebel Mechanics


Shanna Swendson - 2015
    history where the British control with magic and the colonists rebel by inventing.It’s 1888, and sixteen-year-old Verity Newton lands a job in New York as a governess to a wealthy leading family—but she quickly learns that the family has big secrets. Magisters have always ruled the colonies, but now an underground society of mechanics and engineers are developing non-magical sources of power via steam engines that they hope will help them gain freedom from British rule. The family Verity works for is magister—but it seems like the children's young guardian uncle is sympathetic to the rebel cause. As Verity falls for a charming rebel inventor and agrees to become a spy, she also becomes more and more enmeshed in the magister family’s life. She soon realizes she’s uniquely positioned to advance the cause—but to do so, she’ll have to reveal her own dangerous secret.

Discworld Two-Book Set: Witches Abroad and Reaper Man


Terry Pratchett
    

Curioddity


Paul Jenkins - 2016
    When a job opportunity enters the frame in the form of the mysterious Mr. Dinsdale―curator of the ever so slightly less-than-impressive Curioddity Museum―Will reluctantly accepts the task of finding a missing box of levity (the opposite of gravity). What he soon learns, however, is that there is another world out there―a world of magic we can only see by learning to un-look at things―and in this world there are people who want to close the Curioddity museum down. With the help of his eccentric new girlfriend Lucy, Will will do everything he can to deliver on his promise to help Mr. Dinsdale keep the Curioddity Museum in business.Curioddity is Paul Jenkins’ debut novel... exciting, fast-paced, and uncanny. A must-read.

Patricia Briggs' Alpha & Omega: Cry Wolf # 1 of 4


Patricia Briggs - 2012
    Now, Anna has caught the eye of a powerful Alpha wolf, who recognizes her true value as a member of the pack. What will happen when Alpha and Omega come together? Cry Wolf is the latest series of supernatural adventure by New York Times best selling fantasy author Patricia Briggs. Set in the same world as her popular Mercy Thompson novels, it's sure to be a hit with fans old and new!

Need To Find You


Joseph Souza - 2016
    Souza continues to be a master of character development."Yasmine 'Yaz' Weeks would prefer to forget her troubled past and the vile crimes committed against her, but when she discovers a hidden memoir in a kidnapped girl's cell phone, Yaz finds herself on the run with an opportunity for retribution. She soon learns that the memoir has the potential to ruin both the reputation of its late great author, Robert Cornish, as well as the reputations of many influential people.Whip Billings, an ex-cop, unwittingly becomes entangled in the mystery of the missing phone. Realizing that this newfound memoir could significantly hurt the sales of Cornish's classic novel, Force of Will, he begins to search for Yaz. But why are the cops, and a mysterious drug kingpin known only as The Viking, also looking for her?In his quest to find Yaz, Whip uncovers a vast network of political corruption, long hidden family secrets, and a series of reprehensible crimes. As the bodies in town begin to pile up, Whip knows that he must track down Yaz before she also turns up dead.

A Garrison Report: Magic Hath An Element


C.E. Murphy - 2011
    The first chapters of URBAN SHAMAN, as seen through Gary’s eyes instead of Joanne’sWritten as flavor text for part of a Kickstarter campaign, this is the first couple chapters of URBAN SHAMAN from Gary’s point of view. (The link goes to the first chapter from the point of view of the Walker Papers’ narrator/main character Joanne Walker :)). Enjoy!

Faerie Protective Services: An Urban Fantasy Thriller


Robert McKinney - 2020
    I'm a half-orc, a bodyguard, and a fair hand with a rifle. Back in the day, I fought in two wars. One was in uniform for good ole Uncle Sam. The other was under the banner of The Erlking - Iron Lord of goblins, half-bloods, and orcs.Being a vet two times over never bothered me until one hell of a job dragged me out of the mortal world, and back to the land of Faerie. Now I've got to get my client over the US-Mexico border before the next best thing to a fairy goddess finds, enslaves, and kills us - though maybe not in that order.Think I can make it past the elves, gunmen, and magical forces of nature standing in my way?

Cognition


Jacques St-Malo - 2019
    When research suggests how to harness brain evolution, a hunt ensues for a missing link―one that allows to design humans with skills that prodigies of old would have envied.As germline engineering and biological enhancement have become routine, ancient doubts have emerged under new guises: Who are we? Is there a purpose to life? Why is there so much suffering? When faith and science fail to answer these questions, personal greed and national interest quickly fill the void. But gene selection is expensive, and many are excluded from its benefits. The stage is set for tribalism and social discontent on a scale without precedent, and those caught in the fray, whether by choice or by chance, must play roles not always to their liking in the struggle of all creatures against the arbitrariness of existence.

Weather Warden Collection


Rachel Caine - 2003