Genre: Romantic Mystery, LGBTQ+, Crime Fiction
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Jay
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About The Book
Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, Fire on the Island paints a nuanced and loving portrait of a community in crisis while shedding light on the challenges of life in contemporary Greece.
After a string of mysterious fires breaks out on a small Greek island, undercover FBI agent Nick Damigos arrives to investigate, showing up just in time to save a beloved truffle-sniffing dog from the most recent inferno.
But as Nick searches for the arsonist responsible, he finds himself navigating a community rife with conflicts, some of which go back generations. As the threat of the next fire looms, Nick begins to uncover the villagers’ countless buried secrets. But Nick has secrets too, and as he falls for a young bartender who becomes his prime suspect, he becomes entrenched in the very mystery he’s trying to solve.
With time running out to prevent catastrophe, will Nick expose the truth and save the village, or will the island be engulfed in a blaze of vengeance and heartbreak?
The Review
As usual, Smith writes about some heavy contemporary themes – in this case, wildfires, arson, refugees, inter-ethnic violence, climate change and the treatment of women.
The novel’s main character is Nick, a Greek American who is an undercover FBI agent posing as a writer, investigating the fires on a Greek island. Are the fires arson, or climate change? Is Nick’s new lover, Takis, implicated? There are sub-plots involving the priest’s forgeries, the restaurant owner’s daughter and her love for an Albanian waiter, and the changing attitudes of an island community with regard to refugees, homophobia and the church.
The action is intriguing and towards the end gripping, and the book is well written.
One thing I disliked was that some of the minor characters were stereotypes, rather than being fully developed. This at times gave rise to notes of humour in an otherwise grim story, but for me it distanced the reality of the plot.
Nick could well reappear in another thriller by this author, who has a gift for tackling current themes deftly and in the course of cleverly plotted action. There were numerous red herrings and I didn’t guess the identity of the arsonist until the end. Recommended reading.
4 stars.
The Reviewer
I’ve been doing book reviews on my website, crossposted or linked to various social media, for a few years. I read a number of genres but I really enjoy all kinds of speculative fiction so thought I’d like to share my views with you. I love sci fi and other speculative fiction because of the way it can, at its best, make us see ourselves in a new light. Quite apart from the exciting stories, of course! I used to be an English teacher, and I’m a writer (fantasy) so I can be quite critical about style etc. but I hope I can also appreciate properly some books that don’t appeal to me personally but might be simply perfect for others. I have, obviously, read widely, and continue to do so.
