A review by ianbanks
Hawk & Fisher by Simon R. Green

3.0

I am a long-time fan of the Hawk And Fisher books (I like this series far more than I like the parent book that the characters make their debut in) but it is frustrating that such a fun series is written in such a formulaic way. It’s frustrating because there is so much variety in the stories being told that Mr Green could really afford to stretch his considerable talent to make this feel less like a generic set of stories and more like its own wonderful thing. Basically we’ve have a police procedural set in a fantasy city: think 87th Precinct meets Thieves World. It’s a great idea and one that was - back in the day - comparatively rarely used. But while Hawk and Fisher walk the mean streets of Haven, the steps they take ring very hollow. Green feels very influenced by Andrew Vacchs here: there’s a pair of cops who are less cynical than their reputations would have you believe battling the very worst that humanity and the supernatural can throw at them. But the style Green uses here feels very mannered and by-the-book: in the parlance of memes, Green hasn’t “seen some shit,” he’s just read about it. I don’t really mind, though: he was a young and inexperienced author at the time and his voice has grown considerably since these novels were first published. And this is a great introduction to the world: we meet a small section of Haven’s population and, in the guise of a locked-room mystery, we learn a lot of the rules of this world without feeling that we are being given an “As you know, Bob...” speech every couple of pages. Green writes a fun book, for which I can forgive a lot of sins.