Shadowrun : Kincaid

James Kincaid is the type of guy who might be described as down on his luck, if only he’d had some luck to begin with. Like so many people in the shadows of Seattle, he’s trying to get by with what he has. In his case, that includes a lively spirit, a sadly diminished magical talent, quick wits, and good knowledge of the twists and turns of Seattle’s dingy streets and back alleys.

Down these dark streets…Most folks see Puyallup as the worst Seattle’s got to offer; a tangled mess of metahumanity and greet, poverty and ghettoes, vice and corruption, where the crime is more organized than the government. They call it a Barrens, an armpit, a cesspool. Jimmy Kincaid, though, calls it home. Walking the line between shadows and the desperate light, semi-legit like only a Puyallup brat and former cop can be, he insists Puyallup has a heart and a soul, that it’s a place of life, magic, and starving hope.

Jimmy Kincaid, burned-out mage, P. I., and the closest thing Puyallup’s got to a hero, has a lot on his plate these days. Simmering gang wars, feuding mobsters, missing runaways, magical power only as reliable as his stubborn sorcerous patron, and—well above his usual pay grade—an encrypted data file that's already cost him friends, but that he can’t even access.

A vicious magical attack on a street gang isn’t a case paranormal PI Jimmy Kincaid would normally pick up. But when a fellow private eye asks him to look into it, and he learns the gang was doing a charity run for a church - a church Jimmy knows quite well - when they were attacked, his professional curiosity is raised.