Low Town

Low Town (titled the Straight-Razor Cure in the UK), is the first instalment in the Low Town series, and is a gritty noir crime story that just happens to be set in a fantasy world. The fact that the word 'noir' is French for 'dark' is, alone, a compelling argument for Low Town's place on this list. It's the tale of a drug-dealer in the slums of a fantasy city, and his journey to solve a murder that the police can't be bothered with. The darkness of Low Town is integral in the setting, the characters, and the underlying nihilistic view of humanity. The horrors and monsters here are the people, and Polansky proves that people can be far more terrifying than any zombie, werewolf or vampire. The characterization of 'the Warden', the drug-addicted, world-weary investigator protagonist is one of the highlights of the book, and is enhanced by the close first-person narration. You can almost taste the puke, drugs and shit on the streets of Low Town, yet somehow Polansky turns that into a pleasurable experience. Read this book if: you want a hardboiled detective story but prefer your junkies addicted to pixie's breath, rather than something so mundane as heroin.