The Cape Cleaners of Centennial City
A Superhero Laundromat Mystery

About this book:

Arthur Pym doesn't fight crime—he dry-cleans it. At A&M Quality Valet Service, the steam presses hum with a century of secrets: Red Sentinel's ozone-scorched cape, a villain's molten-metal trench coat, the ionized weave of heroes and the ballistic wool of killers. The rules are simple. Cash up front. Twenty-four hour turnaround. No questions asked. Neutral ground for the supers who level city blocks before lunch. But when a lead-lined hamper arrives sweating a glowing blue catalyst that eats atomic lattices for breakfast, Arthur recognizes the work of the Rook—a legend buried beneath the harbor bridges since '98. The coat carries a schematic etched in titanium: the Centennial Clocktower. A date: 1898. And a red dot three levels below street level, where the city's fire-suppression grid connects to the harbor locks.

Now the Iron Lark is picking locks at 7:15 AM with induction coils, demanding a thirty-year-old claim ticket. A black town car idles across the street with obsidian windows. The Sentinel himself is coming for his tunic—and he wants his city back. Arthur has forty-eight hours to unravel a binary weapon stitched into wool, navigate a war between municipal inspectors and underground legends, and keep his niece Moira from dissolving the sort rack with curious science. All while pressing a cape that smells like justice and an overcoat that smells like the deep channel.

*The Cape Cleaners of Centennial City* spins superhero noir through the eye of a needle: gritty, witty, and wildly original. For readers who love *The Dresden Files* meets *Kingsman* with a side of *Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore*—where the most dangerous stains aren't blood or bile, but the secrets sewn into the lining.