To be honest, I would have liked them to appear much earlier, for Colfer to unpack their stories and deconstruct their tropes more fully. However, the women mercenaries hold their own until they don’t.

Suffice to say, this novel fails the Bechdel Test. Colfer brings in women, presumably because he realised that, so far, Squib’s mother represents 51% of the community virtually alone. Regence Hooke enlists some mercenaries’ help. Overall, Colfer’s emphasis on Squib’s Cajun-ness seemed like “look! Minority representation!”įor any more comment, we need an #OwnVoices critic. Sickle cell anemia protects some ethnic groups from malaria but has other effects including increasing infant mortality rates. I’m not convinced that a particular type of skin has that effect. Surely being gay or Cajun or any form of not-‘traditional’ or not-white should be more a given than a point of repeated emphasis?Ĭolfer also mentions Squib’s Cajun skin as if it’s a magical barrier protecting him from mosquito bites and other harmful effects. It’s a bit like a celebrity coming out of the closet in 2020 to accolades of “he’s so brave – and so gay – and he’s a nice man – and so gay”. The emphasis on Squib’s Cajun-ness is so obsessive that I felt uncomfortable. Squib is half-Irish on his father’s side but Colfer rarely mentions this. The book blurb, Squib’s introduction, the narrative and some of the characters focus repeatedly on Squib’s Cajun ethnicity. High Fire is a cross between an adult’s detective story with hints of noir, a coming-of-age novel, and a dragon story with splodeys because in every unknown region ‘there be dragons’. Although he thinks killing Squib might put Elodie off.

He’s using his lawman position to climb the criminal underworld ladder. Squib gets a job working for the local moonshine runner but that lasts five minutes and lands him in a world of trouble. Squib is a teenager who’s forever in trouble, especially now the local constable, Regence Hooke, has the hots for his mother, Elodie. And now they have missiles! High Fire has taken the name “Vern”, short for Wyvern, to fly under the radar (pardon the pun). Those pesky humans: they start as familiars only to become torch-wielding mobs. Lord High Fire has fallen from the pinnacle of the foodchain to become a loner hanging out with alligators in a swamp near New Orleans.

Highfire book 2