The Strangest Criminals

Set in a world where spells are bought online and secret doorways open through household appliances, The Strangest Criminals is a sharp, funny, and subversive crime fantasy about loyalty, found family, and the cost of choosing the wrong kind of magic. Perfect for fans of Neverwhere, Rivers of London, and The Thursday Murder Club.

Welcome to Public Unrest: part cult, part crime syndicate, all chaos.

Sally Li didn’t mean to become a key player in the magical underworld. She just wanted to grow her weird, glowing plants in peace. But in Strange—a seaside town an hour from London, where the secrets outnumber the seagulls—peace is in short supply.

Sal cultivates Tinker, a rare, memory-meddling plant grown for Public Unrest: a secretive, enchantment-fuelled crime syndicate hidden beneath the city. Its network is everywhere—through laundrette spin cycles, bakery ovens, and broom cupboards in takeaway shops—and it runs on a potent mix of magic, tech, and ruthless charm.

To the outside world, Sal is just another StrangeEats delivery rider. But underground, she’s Fix: the Orchard Manager, growing the most valuable (and volatile) product in the Family’s supply chain. She’s protected, surveilled, and suspiciously well-treated. Which means she’s either very important—or dangerously expendable.

When a turf war brews and Sal’s chosen family—her girlfriend Lucy and her flatmate Matti—get tangled in the fallout, she’s forced to confront how deep she’s in and who’s really calling the shots. Is she building something worthwhile or just tending the roots of a new kind of cult?

The Strangest Criminals is a standalone novel.

Recommended age: 

Genre: Fantasy crime comedy

Blake Polden lives in Tasmania, Australia, and writes about found family, chaotic magic, and the general inconvenience of both showing up at once. He's the author of the Sunnywood House series, including the newest instalment, Final Notice. His debut, The Strangest Criminals, became a Booktopia bestseller. Carnegie-longlisted author Wren James has called his work "funny, high-octane, and character-driven" and named him "a worthy successor to Rivers of London and Terry Pratchett" — which Blake has not stopped mentioning since. Once an avid traveller, Blake now does most of his exploring on the page. When he's not writing, he throws pots (the ceramic kind, not the dramatic kind — though with his characters, you never quite know) and is professionally outranked in his household by Kip, a border collie with strong opinions and no patience for deadlines.