A review by bookswithjk
Fire Catcher by C.S. Quinn
3.0
This book picks up some time after Thief Catcher, but many of our characters return. This time around, Charlie is pulled into a mystery surrounding his key as the Great Fire sweeps through London.
Fire Catcher feels overly long. In the beginning, the cliffhanger chapters provided a nice way of building suspense and keeping intrigue. However, towards the end, this ploy is maddening, feeling more as an attempt to stretch the book to its final length. Also, there are plenty of characters who I feel have now become unnecessary - if we’re focused on this “great secret”, why do we need to know about the king and his court? In the end, they hardly provide anything towards the plot.
The two main characters felt very one dimensional. Our hero Charlie is also a man without flaw. Every time he runs into an obstacle, he figures out how to overcome it relatively quickly. There’s never a true moment where he’s completely defeated and struggling to rise again. For example, when he comes to after knocking himself out, he’s instantly picked up and directed to a prison that conveniently imprisoned Lily.
Lily herself seems like an interesting character. However, she’s like a female version of Charlie - not a thief taker, but she is a thief armed with knives and instantly providing information whenever Charlie can’t figure something out.
Now with our villain, I’m quite surprised to find out his role in the Great Fire. His motivations appear solid - he wants to purify his wife’s soul. Maybe it’s because his sister’s death unhinged him, but why didn’t he attempt to do this before in The Thief Taker?
Finally, the pacing. The biggest problem I have is that it doesn’t feel like there’s a fire happening. I normally think of fire as fast moving, and yet it feels like the fire is happening at a snail’s pace. Charlie points it out so we have an idea of where it’s happening and so that it builds up tension, but the characters spend so much time doing their task that it feels like the fire is miles away. Reading through the chapters, I noticed a formula starting to emerge:
1. Charlie notes where the fire is and determines he has time to finish his task.
2. They go in, look around, mull over what they find.
3. The fire reaches them and they have to devise a cunning way to escape.
This formula happens over and over again, and what results is another (but longer) cat-and-mouse chase with a lackluster payoff. I did not particularly enjoy what the great secret was since I was expecting something completely different and completely about Charlie’s bloodline.
Fire Catcher feels overly long. In the beginning, the cliffhanger chapters provided a nice way of building suspense and keeping intrigue. However, towards the end, this ploy is maddening, feeling more as an attempt to stretch the book to its final length. Also, there are plenty of characters who I feel have now become unnecessary - if we’re focused on this “great secret”, why do we need to know about the king and his court? In the end, they hardly provide anything towards the plot.
Spoiler
The two main characters felt very one dimensional. Our hero Charlie is also a man without flaw. Every time he runs into an obstacle, he figures out how to overcome it relatively quickly. There’s never a true moment where he’s completely defeated and struggling to rise again. For example, when he comes to after knocking himself out, he’s instantly picked up and directed to a prison that conveniently imprisoned Lily.
Lily herself seems like an interesting character. However, she’s like a female version of Charlie - not a thief taker, but she is a thief armed with knives and instantly providing information whenever Charlie can’t figure something out.
Now with our villain, I’m quite surprised to find out his role in the Great Fire. His motivations appear solid - he wants to purify his wife’s soul. Maybe it’s because his sister’s death unhinged him, but why didn’t he attempt to do this before in The Thief Taker?
Finally, the pacing. The biggest problem I have is that it doesn’t feel like there’s a fire happening. I normally think of fire as fast moving, and yet it feels like the fire is happening at a snail’s pace. Charlie points it out so we have an idea of where it’s happening and so that it builds up tension, but the characters spend so much time doing their task that it feels like the fire is miles away. Reading through the chapters, I noticed a formula starting to emerge:
1. Charlie notes where the fire is and determines he has time to finish his task.
2. They go in, look around, mull over what they find.
3. The fire reaches them and they have to devise a cunning way to escape.
This formula happens over and over again, and what results is another (but longer) cat-and-mouse chase with a lackluster payoff. I did not particularly enjoy what the great secret was since I was expecting something completely different and completely about Charlie’s bloodline.