#BookReview ‘The Last Smile In Sunder City’ by Luke Arnold

About the book…

A former soldier turned PI tries to help the fantasy creatures whose lives he ruined in a world that’s lost its magic in a compelling debut fantasy by Black Sails actor Luke Arnold.

Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain.I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window.

There are a few things you should know before you hire me:

1. Sobriety costs extra.

2. My services are confidential.

3. I don’t work for humans. It’s nothing personal–I’m human myself. But after what happened, to the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.

Walk the streets of Sunder City and meet Fetch, his magical clients, and a darkly imagined world perfect for readers of Ben Aaronovitch and Jim Butcher.

Hugest of thanks to the awesome Nazia at Orbit Books for my gifted review copy of ‘The Last Smile In Sunder City’ by Luke Arnold, which is hopefully the first in a series. As well as a cracking debut novel, it sets up the world of Archetellos so vividly that I want to go back there.

Some kind of alchemy must be involved in the creation of a novel such as this, in just 316 pages Luke has managed to create an entire world, a mythology, a quest and a solid  central character in Fetch Phillips without overwhelming the reader.

Fetch is a troubled man, living in Sunder City after the Coda, an event wherein humans basically ruined everything for the multiple species which inhabited this world. By trying to tap into the elemental force of magic, they crystalized the river which fed the world and thereby condemned the magical creatures living in it. Vampires for example, still live for 100’s of years but dry up ‘like old fruit’ and disappear. Werewolves are stuck in mid transformation nightmare of a physical form. Giants, satyrs, amphibians are all suffering and it is all down to the humans, of which Fetch is one.

He has set himself up as a private detective, solving missing people cases, finding lost items and so on, so when he is tasked by Principal Burbage to find a missing vampire teacher and librarian, this is a quest he should be able to solve. But when he stumbles on two bodies of vampires who have been murdered and a third unidentified creature, things take a turn for the decidedly darker.

Enter the ‘Nail Gang’ as prime suspects-these reprehensible humans wait until a species has gotten close to exintinction and look to out the final ‘nail in the coffin.’

Straddling the world of magic which has come to mean so much to Fetch, the perennial orphan , and the world of humans, this is a mystery, a whodunnit, a tale of belonging, isolation and guilt writ large with a dark thread of humour running through its veins. Fetch is an intriguing character and the way that magical creatures are depicted is unlike anything I have read before. It’s a read for anyone who likes urban fantasy , tinged with horror and a beating, mortal heart.

More please!

Luckily I won;t have to wait long, just until October 2020 when book 2, ‘Dead Man In A Ditch’ is released, hurray!!

About the author…

Luke Arnold was born in Australia and has spent the last decade acting his way around the world, playing iconic roles such as Long John Silver in the Emmy-winning Black Sails and his award-winning turn as Michael Hutchence in the INXS mini-series Never Tear Us Apart. When he isn’t performing, Luke is a screenwriter, director, novelist, and ambassador for Save the Children Australia. The Last Smile in Sunder City is his debut novel.

Twitter @longlukearnold @orbitbooks