Book Review
Title: The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives Book 1) by Luke Arnold
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4 Stars
I picked this up at the recommendation of Holly from HollyHeartsBooks on YouTube, it has also been compared to Jim Butcher’s work which I do own but wasn’t ready to commit myself to a long series so if I like this trilogy then I will be picking those books in the future. The opening to The Last Smile in Sunder City was interesting to say the least as we are introduced to Fetch Phillips. Fetch is a drinker and private detective but he isn’t well liked for the simple fact he is human. In this world there are many non-human species living in harmony sustained the magic. However, six years before the humans attacked and tried to stop the flow of magic into the world and they actually succeeded. This event is known as the Coda and it was the beginning of the end for the paranormal species. Everyone lost access to their magic and the older races like the Fae and vampires began to die as time caught up with them but the echoes of these wonderful species remain in their children. Fetch was a soldier who worked for the Opus, a seemed to be involved the cessation of magic but the paranormal species needed human technologies to survive after the magic was gone so they live in a tense balance. Fetch is hired by the Principle of Ridgerock Academy to find the history teacher, Professor Rye, who is also a vampire and had been missing for over a week. With money in his pocket the first thing Fetch does is drink but some stumbles across the bodies of two vampires in an abandoned teahouse that Rye used to visit.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Fetch needs to wait for his contacts with the police to identify the vampires before he does anything more since the Professor could already be dead as his body was slowly decaying anyway. Fetch does try to learn more about Rye from the places he visited but Fetch clearly isn’t welcome in them and even take a punch for entering one bar. He learns that a Nail Gang, a group of humans intent on killing non-humans might be behind the killing of the vampires so he begins following this lead but he doesn’t seem all that driven to actually solve the case. The only reason that seems to be driving him forward is money but we do get to learn a lot about Fetch here. It seems he was raised in Weatherly, a city just for humans and they are kept ignorant of the world outside the city and the other species although many are suspicious. After Fetch’s parents died he was taken to Weatherly and adopted so he knew about the life outside the city and when he gets the chance to escape he does just that and ends up coming to Sunder City. Fetch also visits an abandoned mansion where there is a petrified woman who Fetch seems to have a connection with, whether this is a family member or lover remains to be seen but he does mention he would have left Sunder City long ago if it wasn’t for her making me think there is more to Fetch than meets the eye and I can’t wait to see where the story goes.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Fetch is trying his best to investigate but between his drinking, his need for violence and the general hatred towards him he isn’t getting very far right now. However, when looking into the students that Rye was tutoring at the time he learns that one, a siren named January is also missing and has been for three days and Fetch doesn’t think it is a coincidence. After he finds out that none of the dead vampires are Rye is back at square one but he decides to give January’s mother a visit and she is the first non-human to not be openly hostile towards Fetch but she is most likely distracted by the disappearance of her daughter and although Fetch wasn’t hired to find her he is going to do his best. After picking up on a few more leads, Fetch ends at the red light district of the city where there is an Elf named Gabrielle who often sung at the same theatre as January and he hopes she might have some useful information but luck isn’t on Fetch’s side. All this audience earns Fetch is a broken nose and night sleeping on the ground and then the next day he receives a messenger from the League of Vampires who tells him to stop his investigation into finding Rye since he is making a mess of it but he refuses. Fetch knows at this point he has overlooked something vital but can’t think what it might be since he wasn’t that invested in the case from the very beginning but he doesn’t seem like the type of person to give up in these kinds of situations.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Fetch still is making much of the investigation but are learning more about him as a person and what drives him other than the hatred which seems to fuel almost every other race we have been introduced to. Through the brief glimpses we get into Fetch’s past we know what he came to meet Eliah Hendricks shortly after he came to Sunder City and he was the first proper friend that Fetch had and he quickly introduces him to the forest nymph, Amarita Quay or Amari as he comes to call her. The more time they spend together, the quicker Fetch is falling for her until he comes to realise with a shock that he wants to be a better person for her so she can be proud of him. He takes this so far, he even voluntaries to be a Sheppard for the Opus which has never had a human soldier in its ranks before all because it made her proud of him. We don’t know exactly what happened to Amari but we can assume coming from the forest that she reverts to her wooden state when the Coda happened and she has been left in place for years. However, the mansion where Amari has her final resting place is soon to be demolished and Amari along with it which angers Fetch but he soon sees that the city needs to start over and move on from what has happened since magic isn’t coming back anytime soon and even if it did there is no guarantee that Amari would come back as the person she was before but it still hurts Fetch deeply.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, the pace seems to be really slow and it does seem to be a more character driven novel which isn’t normally my thing but I am willing to stick it out and see where the story goes. We learn more about Fetch’s history with Eliah and how the friendship between them eventually went sour when Fetch defected to the human army in order to kill the chimera that killed his family. The chimera is supposedly protected because of its rarity but it kills lots of people when it isn’t controlled and Fetch’s family were some of these victims and he was lucky to survive the attack so I think his anger is justified a little there. He is also beginning to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together but it seems like he is missing some vital piece of information that will make everything make sense. He knows that there are some people who are constantly checking to see if magic has returned and cling to their old way of life like the League of Vampires but Rye was different. He didn’t get his fang replaced when they dropped out after the Coda and he seemed more concerned with giving his centuries worth of knowledge to the children he was teaching over the preservation of his own life and body which made him different from most of the other vampires and vampire wannabes we have seen so far and maybe this is the reason he disappeared. He could have been kidnapped, killed or simply fled and Fetch finds a note seeming to confirm this as it is from the two dead vampires in the teahouse explaining that someone had arrived and they were going to do something about. However, this is overshadowed a little when the slums of Sunder City flood and Fetch immediately jumps in with everyone else to rescue as many people as they can.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Fetch seems to be getting closer to the truth of things as we continue to learn more about him and his history and how he regrets the role in played in magic being taken from the world. He learns that the final body found with the two vampires who were connected to Rye seems have been enhanced with magic which is impossible but it plays to the hopes of many that magic would someday return. This creates a spark of hope in Fetch as he thinks about Amari coming back and does everything he can to protect her in the meantime. He also creates an utter nuisance in order to hopefully attract the attention of the League of Vampires once more since he is 100% sure they have something to do with the murders and mysterious body as well as the disappearance of two people and it all seems connected. Fetch isn’t a good person but he isn’t evil either as he walks a fine line between right and wrong so you can’t always tell what side he is on and that side changes often. I was enjoying The Last Smile in Sunder City but I was going to need a really good ending to make this character driven novel worth it in the end.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, Fetch learns the truth the vampires have tried to keep hidden about the Marrowkin and how this along with trolls seeming to move again has put a spark of hope into the various supernatural races. In the end, Fetch has to think about whether holding onto the past is a good thing since it has only led to suffering in his experience but moving forward and leaving the past behind is scary and most people don’t want to take that leap. Fetch continues to hope that magic might return so that Amari can come back but he doesn’t places all his bets on it but he is moving forward and trying to do some good like Amari asked him. Overall, The Last Smile in Sunder City was a heavy on the character development and world building making it a very character driven novel although there were brief moments of action. I will be continuing the series in the future but it wasn’t much favourite book, I appreciate the insights into the different species and how humans have become the outliers in the world and how they are treated poorly after the magic has gone but Fetch wasn’t easy to identify or bond with as a character so it made certain parts of the novel tough to get through. If you like character driven fantasy with a morally grey main character then this might be for you and I would recommend picking it up because it was worth the read in the end.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.co.uk
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