Frozen Dreams

Frozen Dreams by Moe Lane

Described as the first in a series, but works as a standalone. The narrator is a hard-boiled detective investigating a murder.

In New California. Which is Baja many generations after it was conquered by Ronnie the First. It has a glacier. But it doesn't have any mages because they have a treaty with a nasty country in the Midwest and Mississippi Valley, the Domain, that all the mages will be handed over to them, though it does have the Alliance of Theaterical Stage Employees, which you never call the Mages' Guild (book magic), and the Syndicate of the cleaning ladies, which does the folk magic. Also there are orcs, the Adventurers' Guild, elves, the Lore (heavy on pop culture references but actually magically significant in some respects), dwarves/dwarfs (they don't agree on the plural), icemold which is a nasty magical drug, Redtown where you have to live if you don't agree that other people's things belong to them (you can be a thief, but you have to admit it's wrong), the ambassador from the Domain bragging of a murder that it looks like he didn't commit, and things even loopier than that.

cast of thousands

Was pondering a woman who will appear only in the denouement, and how she can cover up her anomalous situation.  The thing about secret marriages is that they have to be kept secret, and she's upper-crust enough that it's being a city is not cover enough in itself.

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