A review by fub
Touchpaper by David Dodds

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Disclosure: I won this book in a give-away.

The story is set in Edinburgh, and while I have been there a few times, I still had to consult a map to see where things were situated. It's fun that real locations are used and given a supernatural veneer, it really gives you the feeling of supernatural things happening just below the surface of mundane life and we just don't notice.
One way to explain everything about the setting without descending into a boring lecture is to have the main character gradually discover what is going on. But that lasts throughout the whole book, so you never get to a place where you can focus on the story because there's more explaining to be done.
The lead-up to resolutions are long and tense, but the resolution itself is kind of an anticlimax. The end is almost literally a deus ex machina.

I can understand why Archer was brought back, but I think it would have been more interesting if Drew was forced to take his place in the hierarchy and Obadiah as a returning villain.