The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold

I would like to thank Nazia from Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Orbit

Punlished - February 6th

price - £8.99 paperback £4.99 Kindle eBook

I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are three 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 all the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.

Genres are like music they re-invent themselves, and I love to see new spins on the classics. I want to see a genre that in either fantasy or science fiction speaks to the now not the past. I remember when urban fantasy was once the cream of the crop moving the stories of fantasy into the modern world but as with any sub-genre tastes seemed to have changed and also the story seemed stuck into just simple private detective tales but with magic. Luke Arnold’s tale does use the trappings of the noir detective but in The Last Smile in Sunder City gave me one of the most inventive takes on the genre I’ve seen and given me a novel and central lead that really put the novel as one perfectly suited for today’s issues.

Our tale takes place in Sunder City a secondary world that is full of elves, dwarves, dragons, banshees and even vampires. This was a world that was run on magic and led to amazing sights every day but one day humans got to the source of magic on the world and once they touched it magic left the world. However the effects were catastrophic – elves grew ancient in seconds; wizards lost all their power and the impossible creatures like dragons and unicorns all died and so much worse. Now those left of the magical races try to eke out their living in towns and settlements. In Sunder City one of those enclaves that used to be a very powerful place we meet Man for Hire Fetch Phillips a young man haunted by the past and his role in it but still trying to find a way out. He’s hired to find a missing teacher by the head of a progressive school teaching the young now non-magical creatures how to co-exist. The teacher was a well-loved reformed vampire keen to find a way out of this dark time so who would want to harm him? Fetch has to find out who this man really was; who were his enemies and also can Fetch survive touching some painful secrets about his own past?

There are a lot of things I was bowled over by when I read this, and I will be honest I initially just expected another tale a la Dresden – what more can an urban fantasy detective story do? But I think the approaches that Arnold takes are brave and remind me that good crime stories these days don’t just give us an interesting mystery but allow us to explore the society we live in.

First up we know the detective in noir fiction must be drunk and dishevelled but also a smart alec. The novel is told in Fetch’s voice and while on occasion he plays to this stereotype he is actually a lot more vulnerable and unsure of himself than we probably are used to in our male leads. Bright but at the moment very rough around the edges in terms of detection and skills. Arnold’s prose here is beautiful he captures the sense of someone who feels that his best days are behind him and unsure how much longer he can go on. He is more wistfully funny rather than going for killer punchlines. The one thing I am really impressed with is Fetch is actually aware of his privilege – here as a human and also one not weakened by the loss of magic as so many other races have been. This has led to his decision to only represent nonhumans, but he also carries guilt for what happened. In the novel there is a scene where he gets to show a hard mirror to a gang of racists – in other novels that itself would be a punch the air moment but then Fetch feels both disgust at his fighting and dawning realisation that these people are the product of society and also badly led children. I found this approach refreshingly honest and really made me really feel for Fetch’s fall and wanting him to find a way through.

This leads to the other major pull of the book – Sunder City and its surrounding worlds. Here we have almost a post-apocalyptic fantasy tale. When we see Fetch’s past we see him as a young man who fled some very strange human places with a clear level of mistrust of magical beings but Fetch finds himself the sole human in Sunder City working bar and seeing things he’d never imagined and more by luck manages to link himself to some of the more powerful figures in their society. But he is also aware humans are a mixture of despised and pitied so eventually finds himself back in human areas which leads eventually to a key role in the loss of magic. The Coda is horrifying in the scenes where people find their bodies and abilities are lost but the real horror is the aftermath. People who have lost their jobs, loved ones and their sense of worth. There is a fascinating moment when Fetch notes that those who caused the end of the world are now in power of it and I can’t help thinking of the times we live in where a financial crash has in so many ways changed the world and made it a harder and scarier place; despite this there are still wonders to be seen and seeing vampires and sirens all living new lives is still a fascinating tour around a new world for readers to explore.

It would be of course a great place for a tale of Grimdark commentary on the world but another pull in this book is the idea of hope. Fetch’s missing person was a vampire now robbed of his immortality but actually now focused on a school where the children of previously different races are learning to live together. The idea of non humans in human roles such as barman, police and cafe owner has a Pratchett like vibe and again chimes back to the idea of the world we now see where people are migrating and moving into the jobs they can find. It’s not a pleasant world there are people desperate for the old ways; people now in extreme poverty and losing their sense of morality but with Fetch and others we see when times are very tough there can be a desire to do better. Hope here is not yet fully burning but we can see a few embers. The story while relatively short is very thoughtful and action is occasional rather than wham and bam but for me that really allowed the characters and world to breathe and be explored more fully.

I found this an incredibly strong debut and while there are definitely hints of a wider arc to come in future novels this story tells a full tale all on its own. Luke Arnold has created a very impressive world of fantasy that speaks a lot to our own times and this is a reminder that there is life still in the urban fantasy tale. One of the most enjoyable reads so far this year and one I will be thinking about for a long time to come.