Victoria C Penneman

Detective Aldicus Vescard knows all too well the monsters and madmen who prowl the fog-veiled streets of Corradon. He is, after all, a monster himself. Cursed in his errant past, his body now harbors an infernal fiend of pure elemental chaos. Yet none are more suited to investigate those sinister deeds of criminal sorcery than the city’s greatest detective magus. Aided by his loyal apprentice and the science of forensic alchemy, Aldicus must unravel a deadly string of sorcerous crimes menacing the Clockwork City.

Pete Banning was Clanton's favorite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, a father, a neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell.