SOLVED. YA fantasy about underground version of London [s]

[Ashley]

I read this book about 8 years ago. It was a YA book about another city under London. It definitely leaned more towards fantasy than sci-fi. The main character was a boy, somehow he ended up work for some private eye type dude in this underground city. I think there was something wrong with the main character's mom...she was in a hospital the whole time. It may have been a mental hospital. I think at the end the main character decided to keep living in that underground city instead of going back to the real London.

I think the title somehow implied an underground city, but all I can ever find is Undertown, and that's not it.

I really hope I can find this, because I think it was maybe the start of a series!

[Aerulan]

Un Lun Dun by China Miéville?
Haven't read it so can't say if it fits, but your description made me think of it.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Street Magic perhaps? This is the Black London series.

I know that there are several other series with this kind of an idea, but am not sure of titles, since the stories I've read set in those places were short stories in various anthologies. . .

[Gbolahan]

Just throwing this out there; Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere had an underground London that the male protagonist decided to stay in.
Sorry, I'm typing on the goodreads android app, there's no way to do that html thing (for creating book and author links, hiding spoilers, etc)

[Tess]

Neverwhere for the link

[Kris]

Darkside or Lifeblood by Tom Becker? Here's the Darkside series link - https://www.goodreads.com/series/5365...

[Ashley]

AH YES THANK YOU!!! It was Darkside by Tom Becker

Thanks everyone :)

[Kris]

Great! Glad we could help. :)