She’ll get tangled up with a host of intriguing characters, most of whom are not who they appear to be.Īs Jax speeds down a path toward the most powerful vampire clan in the country, she’ll have to put everything on the line. When a distraught-and obscenely wealthy-elf calls Jax at midnight to hire her for an intriguing job, she grabs the opportunity with both hands…īut what Jax doesn’t know is that this case is going to unravel her life.

She hates that she let the money get away from her, but the satin-skirted vampire that escaped out the bordello window worries her more. Free UK p&p on all online orders over £15.Jacquelyn Denna Knight, the best wizard detective in the city, is about to be evicted from her haunted apartment, and she just choked on the job that was going to pay her rent.

Highfire by Eoin Colfer is published by Jo Fletcher (RRP £16.99). With this satisfying and at times hugely joyous novel, Colfer is, like his engaging scaly protagonist, cooking on gas.ĭavid Barnett’s latest novel is Things Can Only Get Better (Trapeze). While the humans who populate this grittily realised world are sometimes rather too quick to accept the existence of Vern, it’s probably necessary to keep the bouncy plot moving. Highfire is written in the style of a neo-noirish thriller – True Detective meets Swamp Thing, told from the perspectives of Vern (who comes across like the love child of Homer Simpson and Victor Meldrew), Squib and Regence Hooke, a corrupt local cop with ambitiously crooked plans for the dragon. What could have been a fairly saccharine odd-couple, cross-generational confection, with Vern as the ultimate boomer to Squib’s Gen Z-er, becomes something more satisfying in Colfer’s deft hands. Vern is closer to the size of a bear than a dinosaur, and the central plank of the book is his relationship with savvy local teenager Squib Moreau, who chances on the dragon’s lair. They are monstrous engines of destruction, as in A Song of Ice and Fire or The Hobbit the noble, benign creatures of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels or cuddly dudes with a penchant for befriending small children, such as Pete’s Dragon in the Disney movie or excitable Edgar from last year’s John Lewis Christmas ad. Dragons in fiction tend to occupy one of three positions.

Highfire book 2