#Review - Relight my Fire by CL McDonnell

Relight my Fire  (Stranger Times, 4)

C K McDonnell
Penguin, 25 January 2024
Available as: HB, 528pp,  audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 528pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Relight My Fire to consider for review.

Back in the Manchester world of The Stranger Times, the team have problems. Infernal powers have taken an interest in Vincent Bancroft, and while one might expect him to just tell them his diary's full, he actually comes across here as very vulnerable, in part because of action he took in an earlier book.

I enjoyed seeing Banecroft as something other than the grouchy, wisecracking boss of previous stories. It may have seemed as though, really, he had all the answers and was always three steps ahead of everyone else - but as is made clear that's not necessarily the case.

What Banecroft is still set upon is protecting Stella (who herself begins to seem a much stranger and more complex person than we have released yet). He'll do that, even if it means the unpleasant psychopomp in the floppy hat who's been shadowing him gets to carry him away to perdition. Why is Stell in danger? Well, she was I the wrong place at the wrong time, specifically, she nearly got fallen on when a young man who thought he could fly (he sort of could) fell from the heavens.

Why he was up there to begin with, who is pulling the strings and how it all connects with the appearance of Manchester's loneliest ghoul, you'll just have to read this book to find out. I found this one to be a little bit of a reset (not too much of one!) with a ore self-contained story and, as I said, a slightly different approach to Banecroft, that would I think make it an easy place to get into this series if you haven't been reading them (though if you don't then read the first three books you are seriously missing out). The same mixture of crime and the supernatural, with more emerging about the hidden world of the Folk, this story has a buzz and focus that's al of its own - as well as some extremely nasty and singularly driven characters, who might presage new alliances in future.

Overall, a story I really enjoyed and one which shows this series is firing on all cylinders.

For more information about Relight my Fire, see the publisher's website here.