Eric Carter/City of the Lost Books in Order

Stephen Blackmoore's Eric Carter books are dark urban fantasies set in a version of Los Angeles where ghosts, gods, witches, vampires, gangsters, and dangerous magic all live close to the surface. The main character is Eric Carter, a necromancer who can see and speak with the dead. He has made a career out of putting troublesome spirits to rest, although his jobs regularly involve problems far worse than a haunting.

Eric is not a tidy hero. He is stubborn, angry, and very good at escalating a bad situation. He has a long personal history in Los Angeles, too, so each new case tends to reconnect him with old crimes, old allies, and people who have excellent reasons not to trust him. The series begins with Dead Things, when Eric returns to the city after years away to investigate his sister's murder.

The dead are never just background noise here.

As the books continue through Broken Souls, Hungry Ghosts, Fire Season, Ghost Money, Bottle Demon, Suicide Kings, Hate Machine, and Cult Classic, Eric gets drawn deeper into conflicts involving death gods, ancient rituals, magical families, and the fallout from his own choices. The stories move quickly, but the consequences carry forward. Starting at the beginning is the best way to understand Eric's shifting alliances, his magical obligations, and why so many powerful people want something from him.

Los Angeles matters as much as any character. Blackmoore uses its heat, traffic, old neighborhoods, crime scenes, and buried history to give the supernatural action a hard-boiled feel. Magic is powerful, but it always has a price, and even the gods can create problems with very human fallout.

City of the Lost is a useful side trip rather than the opening Eric Carter novel. It is a standalone set in the same world, starring Joe Sunday, a low-level Los Angeles enforcer who comes back from murder as a zombie. Joe's search for a talisman of immortality introduces another rough, funny, and dangerous angle on the city's supernatural underworld.

Expect noir-style investigations, sharp banter, body horror, ghosts with unfinished business, and a lead character who rarely gets a peaceful week. These are books for readers who like their urban fantasy fast-moving and their magic tied to crime, debt, revenge, and the people left behind by the dead.