‘Child of Fire’ – Harry Connolly (Del Rey)

I can’t remember exactly what post it was but I do remember having a little moan (a long time ago now) about the fact that there didn’t seem to be an awful lot of male leads in Urban Fantasy. Women who are feisty yet full of angst over whether they should hook up with the vampire master or the werewolf pack leader, there’s loads of those in varying degrees of angst. There are not so many men to be found however. Harry Dresden and Felix Castor spring to mind (plus a small handful of others) but that’s about it. As I mentioned last time round, if I’m missing anyone please leave a comment and let me know!
The balance isn’t quite there yet but it looks like we might start to get there with the arrival of Harry Connolly’s Ray Lilly, a character worth getting to know in a book that’s well worth a look...

Ray Lilly didn’t have an easy time in prison but compared to what he’s going through now it certainly seems that way. Ray is a driver for one Amanda Powliss, high ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society and someone who has sworn to kill him. When he’s not helping hunt down rogue magicians (and stop them introducing extra-dimensional parasites into the world) he’s wondering if each night with Amanda will be his last. Maybe he shouldn’t have betrayed her in the first place...
Now Ray is about to find that Amanda’s latest mission is about to take a new twist. Not only are children spontaneously combusting but their parents are then forgetting that they ever existed. Dark magic is at the bottom of this but their first encounter, with the source, leaves Amanda badly injured and unable to finish the job. It’s all up to Ray...

‘Child of Fire’ weighs in at a very slender three hundred and forty three pages but it felt like it could have been half the size as the relentless pace (and gripping nature) of the plot made the pages fly by. This is a book where if you don’t have your seatbelt on right away then you will be clinging on by your fingertips for the rest of the journey!
Sometimes this isn’t a good thing as it can be a case of ‘blink and you’ll miss something’. There were a couple of occasions where the fast pace meant that important parts of the plot slipped under the radar and I was left a little bemused when they came to light later on. Maybe Connolly needs to take his foot off the accelerator once in a while? On the whole though, I approve of a book that will pick up the plot and run with it rather than indulge in needless introspection from it’s characters.

Ray Lilly is definitely a man who you want to stay on the right side but he’s also a guy who you could see yourself having a beer with. He’s a character that inspires interest right from the start and develops in line with what the plot throws at him. Everything happens for a reason and it’s also interesting to see hints of his past come to the surface, rounding him out further. Having said that though, I was left wondering how relevant some of these hints were (the same kind of thing occurred with Amanda as well). This approach hints at a wider story that will be told in the future but doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story being told now. The plot is normally pretty tight and moments like these make it come across as a little slack (although you could also say that these are setting things up for future plots, it just makes the story less stand alone than it should be). I’m hoping that things will be tied up in later books... Ray’s relationship with Amanda is tense and this tension stands out from the page. You’re never entirely sure what Amanda will do next and this is a real page turner...

The plot itself is average urban fantasy fare where a mystery needs to be solved and there is an urgent reason to get it done quickly. Where Connolly rises above the rest is in his depiction of a small town (where the locals don’t trust outsiders) that is haunted by an evil that you won’t normally find in the Urban Fantasy section. While there are werewolves, Connolly takes things in a more Lovecraftian direction and I found this particularly refreshing to come across. It’s a grim setting which means it’s the perfect setting for a tale like this.
Connolly isn’t afraid to put his characters through the wringer either and adrenalin fuelled moments of spectacle are combined with a willingness to let the plot hang on the direction of a stray bullet. This is what kept me reading!

There are a few niggles with ‘Child of Fire’ but I’m hoping these will be ironed out in the sequel (and beyond). In the meantime, all Urban Fantasy fans should do themselves a favour and grab a copy of ‘Child of Fire’ (out at the end of September). I don’t think they will regret it.

Eight and Three Quarters out of Ten