Bannon & Clare Books in Order

Bannon & Clare is a gaslamp fantasy series set in an alternate empire where sorcery, steam power, clockwork devices, and strict social rank operate side by side. Emma Bannon is a Prime sorceress in service to Queen Victrix. Archibald Clare is a mentath, a thinker trained to notice patterns and reason at extraordinary speed. Their partnership joins instinctive magic to relentless logic, though neither method is as dependable as its owner would like.

Londinium is always one bad secret away from disaster.

The Iron Wyrm Affair brings Bannon and Clare together when sorcerers and mentaths begin dying. Emma is ordered to protect Clare, while he tries to understand a conspiracy that appears to reach the Crown itself. Their investigation moves through drawing rooms, filthy streets, hidden workshops, and places where ancient power survives beneath industrial progress. Mikal, Emma's Shield, adds another layer of loyalty and danger to the team.

The Damnation Affair shifts the action to the frontier town of Damnation. Sheriff Jack Gabriel is trying to keep order when Catherine Barrowe arrives in search of her missing brother. The case brings schoolrooms, mines, local secrets, and the restless dead into the same conflict. It broadens the series beyond Londinium while showing how the empire's magic and ambition affect people far from court.

Bannon and Clare reunite at the center of The Red Plague Affair. A weaponized disease threatens Londinium, and the hunt for the doctor behind it becomes a race for a cure. Fire, panic, and political pressure test Emma's magic as well as Clare's reasoning. In The Ripper Affair, a killer targets poor women while Clare is still recovering from a severe accident. The murders expose secrets that powerful people would rather leave unnoticed.

The tone combines mystery, action, and dark alternate history. Emma is formidable, but using sorcery carries strain and obligation. Clare can solve patterns others miss, yet his mind and body have limits. Their friendship works because they respect each other's strengths without pretending either of them is easy company. Around them, servants, Shields, police, criminals, and court officials all have their own interests.

Read the four adventures in publication order, beginning with The Iron Wyrm Affair. The collected volume Bannon & Clare places the full sequence together for readers who prefer one edition. Expect intricate cases, dangerous magic, imperial politics, and two professionals who keep saving the realm while arguing about how the evidence should be read.