Wrath of the Fury Blade tries to be several things: It is a police procedural, a commentary on Nazism, a semi-romance and a fantasy. The story itself is engaging, with police elf Reva Lunaria untangling the mysterious murder of the First Magistrate, a murder where the victim is cut completely in half, in his own home, with no witnesses. A second murder, this time of the kingdom’s finance minister, soon follows, then more attacks and murders.
Elvish Nazis
It’s clear that someone has a vendetta against a group of people, but what ties the group together? Reva’s only clue is the pin that each victim wears, from a club dedicated to elven racial purity; the victims’ pins all have one black star, possibly indicating a secret sub group.
Here’s where the Nazi problem comes in. The king promulgated Purity Laws three times, each one decades apart, and each one increasingly strict. Now a person with a great grandparent who was not elvish is no longer an elf and cannot own property nor be married to an elf. (The authors say this is Fascism, but Fascists revere the State, not the blood. Nazis revere “pure” blood.)
This Nazi/Jim Crow/Apartheid nasty mess is a backdrop that doesn’t add much to the story. It explains a little why some of the secret society is so careful to hide their Dark Elf ancestry, but we didn’t need the entire Jim Crow racial nonsense to make that point work. The authors brought in a few incidents with the now-denigrated non-elves that felt pasted on, as if they initially intended to make those incidents a big part of the story, then changed their mind and left the stubs.
The primary story, Revi and her new partner Ansee, unraveling the murders and finding the culprit, is good. It moves fast and is engaging. The secondary story, with the Gestapo-like Sucra working hand-in-hand with the new police commissioner, is also quite well done.
This secondary story is terrifying all by itself as we see the Sucra’s Senior Inquisitor Malvaceä torturing, imprisoning without cause, extorting, killing and setting up false trails. I’d like to see the authors further develop the primary story against the backdrop of this secret police threat to the king and kingdom.
Overall
Wrath of the Fury Blade is readable and I mostly enjoyed it. There were a few spots that are far-fetched, for example, when Revi’s long time information source not only recognizes the pins but knows there is a centuries-long plot against the king that ties into the pins.
The characters were fairly interesting but not well developed enough to carry the novel without the fast plot. Revi felt too much like a composite police/dectective/good guy crime fighter and the authors dropped a few clues that she may have more going on than the stock character they present.
Wrath of the Fury Blade leaves us ready for a sequel. I think we’ll have more Revi/Ansee interactions, possibly more about Revi’s family and murdered father and we’ll see why Ansee and his sister do not get along. I’m hoping the authors build onto the Sucra threat. I also hope the authors write a little less of a multi-genre mash up and concentrate on the characters and pick one or two main stories.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in expectation of an honest review.
3 Stars
Amazon links are ads that pay commission to blog owner.
Leave a Reply