There is a world called Strohr where evil wears many faces, and a dying order of people whose entire purpose is to hunt it. Their name for themselves is Investigators of the Wicked. When the series opens there are almost none of them left, and someone is quietly killing the ones who remain. That is the engine of Investigating the Wicked, a dark fantasy mystery series about a monster hunter who slowly realizes that the thing hunting evil is being hunted itself. If you have wanted to try it but did not know where to begin, this is the spoiler free starting guide.

What the Series Is

Investigating the Wicked follows Kavel, one of the last Investigators, born into a bloodline of hunters and traveling alone through a world that has forgotten why it needs him. Each book is built from episodic cases. A village where no one can speak. A city hiding monsters beneath its streets. A noble house where betrayal comes from the one person he trusted. Every case looks self contained at first. None of them are. Underneath the monster of the week is a single, patient conspiracy that has been dismantling the order one name at a time for two hundred years. The pleasure of the series is watching a man who sees the world in black and white slowly lose that certainty as the truth gets closer. If you like dark fantasy with the bones of a detective story, the kind where the investigation matters as much as the swordwork, this was written for you.

Where to Start

Start with Book One. It is the front door to everything, the world, the order, Kavel himself, and the conspiracy that drives all three books. Read Investigating the Wicked: Book One on Amazon The series is meant to be read in order. Each book closes its own arc while turning the larger screw one full rotation, so the payoff in Book Three only lands if you have walked the road from the beginning.

The Three Books So Far

Book One is the one where Kavel is hunted, working case after case until he sees that someone has been killing his kind for two hundred years and the enemy finally has a name. Read the Book One spotlight, or go straight to Book One on Amazon. Book Two is the one where the few survivors stop running, gather into a team, and fight back, stepping into the open against the people who spent generations erasing them. Read the Book Two spotlight, or go straight to Book Two on Amazon. Book Three is the one where Kavel leads the hunt west into the conspiracy's inner circle and, house by house and kill by kill, starts to become the very thing he was raised to destroy. Read the Book Three spotlight, or go straight to Book Three on Amazon.

There Is Also a Comic

If you want to see Strohr before you read it, the first arc has been retold as a full color graphic novel. The Silent Village, in panels. It is a faithful adaptation of where the series begins, and it works as a low effort way to find out whether the world is for you before you commit to the novels. Investigating the Wicked: The Comic, Arc One on Amazon You can also browse the whole library, every book and every format, at books.kevingabeci.com.

Read It on Kindle or Kindle Unlimited

All three books are on Kindle, and all three are in Kindle Unlimited, so if you are a subscriber you can start the whole series tonight for nothing but time. If it grabs you, the best thing you can do for an indie author is leave a review and tell one person who would like it. Strohr is waiting, and so is the question the whole series is built around. What do you do when the thing hunting evil is being hunted itself.