Now this is my kind of dark fantasy! Low Town is classic noir with a fantasy gloss. Warden is an independent operator, a drug dealing middleman with an abrasive streak a mile wide. Before his fall, he used to be the Ice, a skilled detective, before that, a soldier in a brutal war, and before that, a street urchin. When children begin disappearing from Low Town, Warden is dragged from his comfortable criminal rut and into an investigation that reaches into dark and dangerous places. Because the kids aren't being snatched by slavers or pedophiles, they're being sacrificed. And the Void awaits for everybody.

Warden is a great protagonist, but there's some unevenness in tone and characterization. Polansky has trouble in the middle range between James Ellroy broken-glass rage and sarcastic obsequiousness. Secondary characters are a little thin. Warden is an unrepentant asshole, and if you need to like your protagonist this is not the right book at all. That said, I enjoyed the worldbuilding, which is close enough to the real world to feel authentic while being distinct enough not to be a direct copy. Polansky is a hair short of five star greatness, but this book is strong enough to get me to pick up #2 in the series.