HELL'S DETECTIVE

A detective trapped in purgatory has a chance to win freedom from her past.

Stuck in the world of Lost Angeles, the afterlife for those who were none too good in their original lives, Kat Murphy waits out her days at Benny’s, a dive bar filled with the closest thing purgatory has to friends. In her former life, Kat was a quick-thinking detective known for her toughness and wit. Those qualities drew fellow detective Danny Ainsworth to Kat but ultimately led to the events that ended both their lives and brought Kat to her indefinite stay in Lost Angeles. When newcomer Franklin Johnson shows up at Benny’s, Kat’s in no mood to deal with the wannabe detective, though she can’t help telling him a few of the tricks of the place—like the news that in the afterlife, you can’t die. The same day, Laureen Andrews, one of the city’s chief administrators, shows up trying to talk with Kat about her work. Kat’s not quite sure what she’s done to make herself suddenly so popular or how she can make it stop. But Laureen’s got an offer Kat can’t refuse: if Kat can help find a mysterious object that seems to have been stolen from Laureen, Laureen will call off the supernatural Torments that haunt Kat’s nights. Now Kat has to figure out if it’s worth it to engage in the world around her or if she’s just another permanent resident of Lost Angeles who’s given up.

Logan (Wannabes, 2016, etc.) creates a world of the dead rich with details that range from the mundane to the sublimely vicious, suggesting a skill for humor that supersedes his mystery abilities.