Twenty Palaces is a novel series blending fantasy and mystery and written by Seattle author Harry Connolly.
Ray Lilly, the series' first person narrator, and protagonist recounts his adventures working for the Twenty Palace Society.
Ray Lilly is the wooden man (a decoy expected to die to allow a sorceress to deal with a predator or enemy sorcerer) and driver of Annalise Powliss, and is under a standing death mark from the Twenty Palace Society.
The Wheel is slowly eroding its bindings, enough so that it begins to kill the children of Hammer Bay, using their bodies to build an offspring.
Ray is contacted by former associates in Los Angeles, and discovers all of his friends have been infected with predators to render them invisible.
A novelette contained in Connnolly's collection Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy.
In October 2011, Harry Connolly announced that Del Rey had cancelled the series due to poor sales.
Child of Fire received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was subsequently named to their top 100 books of 2009 list.
Critics of the novels are generally concerned by the fact that not enough information has been given about the Twenty Palace Society and the way magic works in that universe.