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Lightning Runes
All your favorite characters from the hugely popular and critically acclaimed
Twice as Dead
are back in this exhilarating follow-up to the first book in the
City of Shadows
series.
Jack Mitchell, the hardboiled ex-military private eye is asked to help muisician Oscar Ricks investigate Grampus Records (which he hopes to do while avoiding with the very unpleasant mob the rules this alternate 1940's Lost Angeles where the undead and dead co-exist).
Jack's complicated personal life also intertwines with the case, making the issue even more complicated. As he dives deeper into his investigation, he encounters danger at every turn, from physical altercations to supernatural threats.
To survive, let alone solve the case, Jack must rely on his wit, experience, the help of unlikely allies, and his street-smart instincts, to navigate the volatile world of mobsters, magic, and personal loyalty.
Jack Mitchell, the hardboiled ex-military private eye is asked to help muisician Oscar Ricks investigate Grampus Records (which he hopes to do while avoiding with the very unpleasant mob the rules this alternate 1940's Lost Angeles where the undead and dead co-exist).
Jack's complicated personal life also intertwines with the case, making the issue even more complicated. As he dives deeper into his investigation, he encounters danger at every turn, from physical altercations to supernatural threats.
To survive, let alone solve the case, Jack must rely on his wit, experience, the help of unlikely allies, and his street-smart instincts, to navigate the volatile world of mobsters, magic, and personal loyalty.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 11, 2026
About the author
Harry Turtledove
570 books2,005 followersDr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.
Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.
Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.
Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.
Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 1, 2026
I didn't find it as engaging as the first City of Shadows book. It felt repetitive and padded at times. OK, we get it, you don't have a car so you're reliant on public transit. Enough with the itineraries.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
I picked this up because I fell hard for the first book in the series, Twice as Dead and was hoping for more of the same. That first book managed to combine the hard-boiled, noir-ish sensibilities of down-on-their-luck detectives like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Easy Rawlins with the paranormal world of Dan Shambles into an urban fantasy that mixed the best of the ‘old skool’ of that genre with a bit of paranormal romance and the kind of thoroughgoing alternate world building that the author is famous for.
The City of Shadows that the series is set in is an alternate version of Los Angeles in a slightly skewed version of our own world. A world where all the creatures that go bump in the night – wizards, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and zombies, among others, are a known and sorta/kinda accepted part of society. About as well accepted as any other minority population, but also known to be just as real even if just as looked down upon as any other such group.
We never do find out whether the vampires, etc., came out of the coffin one relatively recent dark night or whether their existence has been accepted all along. We are, however, in a 1940s post-World War II era where the powers lined up more or less the same way but under different names – and with the supernatural fighting on both sides.
Just as in the first book, P.I. Jack Mitchell has several cases on his desk that he’s all too afraid are going to turn out to be one big, nasty mess. And he’s right. The vampire whose Nazi views and aggressive behavior drawing the wrong kind of attention to Vampire Village, the werewolf stalking the streets on full moon nights, the mob involvement in the record business AND the blackmail of the queer, black owners of the best jazz club in town shouldn’t have anything to do with each other. But Jack’s luck doesn’t work that way.
He knows they’ll be connected, if only to make his life that much more difficult and in that much more peril. All he has to do is keep his own skin in one piece long enough to unwind all the tangled threads of the case before they can tie him down or burn him out – again – and this time for good.
Escape Rating B: The cover of Lightning Runes sums up my mixed feelings a whole lot better than I ever expected. First, vampire Dora Urban wouldn’t be caught alive, unalive or dead in that dress or with that ridiculous expression on her face. Even after centuries – or more – as a vampire she’s still too much of an aristocrat for either. Meanwhile, there’s something wrong, like uncanny valley wrong or human bodies don’t quite work that way wrong, with the man standing in for Jack Mitchell. The story was like that too for me, a sense of ‘almost but not quite’ right – or at least not quite as good as the first book.
I really wanted to love this one because Twice as Dead was just so good. Parts of this WERE good. The cases were fascinating, the way that they came together took dogged investigation and a bit of luck and the way that Jack teased around all the edges of everything until the pieces started coming together was compelling. The way that Jack gathered more friends around him than he ever thought he’d have to get the job done was terrific.
But, and it’s a fairly big but, the pace slowed down every single time that Jack either got lost in his memories or got pulled down inside his own head in his totally righteous resentment of the way that the US of his 1940s – and ours – did not live up to the image it had of itself as the land of the free, the home of the brave, where all men are created equal.
Because he knows first-hand it’s not true. Jack is mixed-race, able to ‘pass’ in either direction. He sees the way the corrupt LAPD pull over men just a shade darker than himself for beatdowns in plain sight that people just pretend isn’t happening right before their eyes. He knows it could be him.
In the wake of their version of World War II, Jack still gets nightmares about his service during the war, even as he’s thinking about where he would have ended up if he hadn’t passed and wondering whether it would have been safer AND less scarring to be with the black troops or whether he’d just have a different set of scars.
While the many Jews in his neighborhood, and among his friends, remind him that there are people who have it WAY worse than he ever did – and that it’s all wrong and doesn’t look like it’s going to get righted anytime soon – if at all.
All of the above is, well, real. Very real. And it’s equally realistic that Jack thinks about all of it, gets reminded of the war all too often because he’s still fighting it in his head, hates the new ‘restricted’ neighborhoods – restricted to white people only, no nonwhites, no Jews allowed in spite of the laws against such restrictions – and seethes about all of it. That the villain this time around is his world’s equivalent of an SS officer who seems to be hell-bent on resurrecting his ‘Leader’s’ plans and policies in the US – if not the actual bastard himself – continuously pokes Mitchell’s wounds and resentments throughout the entire story.
The issue, as far as the book is concerned, is that it pulls the reader out of the story every time Jack goes down into these dark trenches, and he does it a LOT. I both sympathized and empathized with him every single time, but it either happened too often or went too deep and too far and too much.
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in ‘The Maltese Falcon’
After all of Jack’s internal angst, the ending was a bit anticlimactic – and a bit of a deus ex machina. It was also a lot of fun, a popping of a huge balloon of tense anticipation with the lolloping of a ginormous shaggy dog. But as fun and funny as it was while it was happening, it was almost forgettable after the dark depths of the case itself. Your reading mileage may vary.
Or listening mileage, as the story lends itself well to audio with its first-person protagonist, very much in the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe talking to himself and breaking the fourth wall kind of way. That being said, I kept waffling between thinking that Jack Mitchell didn’t sound as much like Spade or Marlowe as he thought he did or that the narrator didn’t sound quite as much like portrayals of Spade or Marlowe as I thought he ought to have. Your listening mileage may seriously vary on that one, especially as it may just be that Humphrey Bogart cast such a long, gravelly shadow as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon that it’s STILL impossible to shake.
In the end, I have to say that I liked this rather than loved it the way I did Twice as Dead. But I liked it more than enough to want to see it continue. I also need to find out how Jack’s office cats, Old Man Mose and Mehitabel are doing – and what they’re doing to destroy Jack’s office even more!
Originally published at Reading Reality
The City of Shadows that the series is set in is an alternate version of Los Angeles in a slightly skewed version of our own world. A world where all the creatures that go bump in the night – wizards, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and zombies, among others, are a known and sorta/kinda accepted part of society. About as well accepted as any other minority population, but also known to be just as real even if just as looked down upon as any other such group.
We never do find out whether the vampires, etc., came out of the coffin one relatively recent dark night or whether their existence has been accepted all along. We are, however, in a 1940s post-World War II era where the powers lined up more or less the same way but under different names – and with the supernatural fighting on both sides.
Just as in the first book, P.I. Jack Mitchell has several cases on his desk that he’s all too afraid are going to turn out to be one big, nasty mess. And he’s right. The vampire whose Nazi views and aggressive behavior drawing the wrong kind of attention to Vampire Village, the werewolf stalking the streets on full moon nights, the mob involvement in the record business AND the blackmail of the queer, black owners of the best jazz club in town shouldn’t have anything to do with each other. But Jack’s luck doesn’t work that way.
He knows they’ll be connected, if only to make his life that much more difficult and in that much more peril. All he has to do is keep his own skin in one piece long enough to unwind all the tangled threads of the case before they can tie him down or burn him out – again – and this time for good.
Escape Rating B: The cover of Lightning Runes sums up my mixed feelings a whole lot better than I ever expected. First, vampire Dora Urban wouldn’t be caught alive, unalive or dead in that dress or with that ridiculous expression on her face. Even after centuries – or more – as a vampire she’s still too much of an aristocrat for either. Meanwhile, there’s something wrong, like uncanny valley wrong or human bodies don’t quite work that way wrong, with the man standing in for Jack Mitchell. The story was like that too for me, a sense of ‘almost but not quite’ right – or at least not quite as good as the first book.
I really wanted to love this one because Twice as Dead was just so good. Parts of this WERE good. The cases were fascinating, the way that they came together took dogged investigation and a bit of luck and the way that Jack teased around all the edges of everything until the pieces started coming together was compelling. The way that Jack gathered more friends around him than he ever thought he’d have to get the job done was terrific.
But, and it’s a fairly big but, the pace slowed down every single time that Jack either got lost in his memories or got pulled down inside his own head in his totally righteous resentment of the way that the US of his 1940s – and ours – did not live up to the image it had of itself as the land of the free, the home of the brave, where all men are created equal.
Because he knows first-hand it’s not true. Jack is mixed-race, able to ‘pass’ in either direction. He sees the way the corrupt LAPD pull over men just a shade darker than himself for beatdowns in plain sight that people just pretend isn’t happening right before their eyes. He knows it could be him.
In the wake of their version of World War II, Jack still gets nightmares about his service during the war, even as he’s thinking about where he would have ended up if he hadn’t passed and wondering whether it would have been safer AND less scarring to be with the black troops or whether he’d just have a different set of scars.
While the many Jews in his neighborhood, and among his friends, remind him that there are people who have it WAY worse than he ever did – and that it’s all wrong and doesn’t look like it’s going to get righted anytime soon – if at all.
All of the above is, well, real. Very real. And it’s equally realistic that Jack thinks about all of it, gets reminded of the war all too often because he’s still fighting it in his head, hates the new ‘restricted’ neighborhoods – restricted to white people only, no nonwhites, no Jews allowed in spite of the laws against such restrictions – and seethes about all of it. That the villain this time around is his world’s equivalent of an SS officer who seems to be hell-bent on resurrecting his ‘Leader’s’ plans and policies in the US – if not the actual bastard himself – continuously pokes Mitchell’s wounds and resentments throughout the entire story.
The issue, as far as the book is concerned, is that it pulls the reader out of the story every time Jack goes down into these dark trenches, and he does it a LOT. I both sympathized and empathized with him every single time, but it either happened too often or went too deep and too far and too much.
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in ‘The Maltese Falcon’
After all of Jack’s internal angst, the ending was a bit anticlimactic – and a bit of a deus ex machina. It was also a lot of fun, a popping of a huge balloon of tense anticipation with the lolloping of a ginormous shaggy dog. But as fun and funny as it was while it was happening, it was almost forgettable after the dark depths of the case itself. Your reading mileage may vary.
Or listening mileage, as the story lends itself well to audio with its first-person protagonist, very much in the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe talking to himself and breaking the fourth wall kind of way. That being said, I kept waffling between thinking that Jack Mitchell didn’t sound as much like Spade or Marlowe as he thought he did or that the narrator didn’t sound quite as much like portrayals of Spade or Marlowe as I thought he ought to have. Your listening mileage may seriously vary on that one, especially as it may just be that Humphrey Bogart cast such a long, gravelly shadow as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon that it’s STILL impossible to shake.
In the end, I have to say that I liked this rather than loved it the way I did Twice as Dead. But I liked it more than enough to want to see it continue. I also need to find out how Jack’s office cats, Old Man Mose and Mehitabel are doing – and what they’re doing to destroy Jack’s office even more!
Originally published at Reading Reality
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Lightning Runes continues the story started in Twice As Dead, or at least continues with the life of the protagonist, biracial private eye in the late '40s, early '50s LA. Jazz continues to play an important part in the series, as well as the social commentary, which is as strong and as persistent as it was in the first novel. In fact, that seems almost like a detriment to this book, since it kinda impacts the character work and the story itself. I don't have a political dog in this fight, I am a Slavic European, one step removed from the peasant ancestry and firm Socialist in my political beliefs, and I fully realize that this book tackles some very American problems, both historical and modern, but nevertheless, I found certain aspects of it to be suffocating at times.
Now, Harry Turtledove couldn't write a bad story even if he'd try, so this novel was both engaging and entertaining, but in my view at least a third of it was simply a filler content, with no impact on the story or even world development and what should have been a climax was more like a whimper. To be perfectly honest, the episode with the kittens was probably the best crafted and best written part of the Lightning Runes. Now, I am a cat (and dog) person, and I live with a black cat appropriately called Ancalagon the Black, but this should have been a side piece to the main story, an amusing afterthought, not the pinacle of the novel.
Anyway, I'd like to read further works in this universe, especially with more attention to the world building and some new and more diverse characters.
4*
Now, Harry Turtledove couldn't write a bad story even if he'd try, so this novel was both engaging and entertaining, but in my view at least a third of it was simply a filler content, with no impact on the story or even world development and what should have been a climax was more like a whimper. To be perfectly honest, the episode with the kittens was probably the best crafted and best written part of the Lightning Runes. Now, I am a cat (and dog) person, and I live with a black cat appropriately called Ancalagon the Black, but this should have been a side piece to the main story, an amusing afterthought, not the pinacle of the novel.
Anyway, I'd like to read further works in this universe, especially with more attention to the world building and some new and more diverse characters.
4*
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I love this series so much! It’s a bit like the Dresden Files if it were set in the forties. Very similar with the humor and snark. Jack Mitchell is a hilarious character, and with both books, I was so bummed my time with him was over! (It’s the same way I felt after the Nightside series books, and this series has flavors of that as well.) In fact, this series has a whole collection of amazing characters. It’s really hard not to get attached to them. This story was a little unique for me in the sense that I generally shy away from stories about the wars or Nazis (were-vamps or otherwise). But given the timeframe and the subject matter, they both fit the story so well. It would almost be weird if both things weren’t in this story. Yes, even the were-vamp. Now granted, some of the story was a bit dramatic, but it’s a noir story so it fits with the genre. This is a great series and I highly recommend it is you want a great otherworldly romp with a hilarious PI protagonist!
Huge thanks to Arc Manor | CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!
Huge thanks to Arc Manor | CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Having enjoyed the first book in the series, I was happy to read this second book. We are back with Jack and his paramour Dora. He has a new client for his private investigation firm, and this case leads to some other strange goings on in this neck of the woods. I really like the characters, but there are a couple of things that bother me so much they draw me out of the story. Jack tells Dora frequently that he loves her and she gets angry or blows him off. This happens quite a few times, and I feel so bad for Jack, I almost feel he’s in an abusive relationship. The other thing is that Jack seems more like he’s wandering around drinking more than investigating. Even with these two things, I still enjoyed this latest installment, and fans of the first book will too. Recommend. I was provided a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.
December 6, 2025
Everything I loved about the first book of the series, “Twice as Dead”, is there in this book. The story is well-told and well-paced; it was difficult to put the book down. The characters and world-building continue to excel and there are many passages so well-written that I would read them over several times. And I still loved the thoughtfulness of the book and noir attitude. Overall this is a great read and I look forward to even more books in the series. Thank you to Netgalley and CAEZIK SF & Fantasy for the advance reader copy.
May 15, 2026
A Great Adventure In A World Not Our Own
A great page turner of a book that is well thought out and realized.
Colorful,funny at times and heart warming, as any great book is and a Harry Turtledove book in particular.
A great and worthy sequel of his new series .
I look forward to another one.
A great page turner of a book that is well thought out and realized.
Colorful,funny at times and heart warming, as any great book is and a Harry Turtledove book in particular.
A great and worthy sequel of his new series .
I look forward to another one.
April 23, 2026
More, please.
I am really enjoying this series. The time and setting are interesting, as is the otherworldly aspect. Mitchell is a great character, and I am curious about his future.
I am really enjoying this series. The time and setting are interesting, as is the otherworldly aspect. Mitchell is a great character, and I am curious about his future.
May 9, 2026
Another Turtledove book that was over too soon. Fun read, interesting characters, surprises, a detailed alternate world with vampires and magic as part of everyday living. A sequel but readable on its own, and hopefully part of a series.
review-libro
April 1, 2026(Review copy courtesy of Tantor Media, Inc, Harry Turtledove, and the Libro.fm Audiobook Listening Copy Program.)
Read
May 4, 2026As usual a brilliant story by Harry Turtledove.
Well chosen characters with wit and strength. I have no way of putting into words how good this is.
All I can say is Thank you Harry
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews