The Fatal Flame

By: Lyndsay Faye

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

The final installment in Lyndsay Faye’s Timothy Wilde series, which Lee Child called “solid-gold” and Gillian Flynn declared “spectacular.”

No one in 1840s New York likes fires, copper star Timothy Wilde least of all. After a blaze killed his parents and another left him with a terrible scar, he has avoided flames of all kinds. So when a seamstress turned arsonist threatens Robert Symmes, a corrupt tycoon high in the Tammany Hall ranks, Timothy isn’t thrilled that Symmes consults him. His dismay escalates when his audacious and charismatic older brother, Valentine, himself deeply politically entrenched, decides to run against the incumbent, who they suspect is guilty of assault and far darker crimes. Immediately after his brother’s courageous declaration, Timothy finds himself surrounded by powerful enemies who threaten to harm those he cares about most.
Meanwhile, the love of Timothy’s life, Mercy Underhill, unexpectedly appears on his doorstep and takes under her wing a starving Irish orphan who may be the key to stopping the combustions threatening the city—if only they can make sense of her cryptic accounts. The closer they come to deciphering her wild tales of witches and angels, however, the closer Timothy comes to the fiery and shocking conclusion that forces him to face everything he fears most.
A boisterous and suspenseful book from a master of historical adventure, The Fatal Flame is a tale for the ages.

Critic reviews

Praise for The Fatal Flame:

"As always in this series, the research is impeccable and the period ambience dazzling." —The New York Times Book Review

“Lyndsay Faye’s New York trilogy is immersive, compelling, convincing, and yes, thrilling. Read it today for solid-gold entertainment, but don’t be surprised to see it taught in college tomorrow.” –Lee Child

"Faye masterfully evokes the turbulence of mid-nineteenth-century New York, with its Tammany Hall politics, burgeoning conflict over abolition, and rising wave of feminism, as Irish girls, fleeing famine, are forced into prostitution or poorly paid labor as seamstresses." —Booklist Starred Review

"As in her previous books, Faye's diligence in researching the period is manifest, and readers will feel transported back to mid-19th-century Manhattan." --Publisher's Weekly Starred Review

“Faye’s re-creations of mid-19th-century New York [in The Fatal Flame] are rich with exotic sights and smells, as well as delightfully eccentric personalities.” —J. Kingston Pierce for Kirkus


Praise for Lyndsay Faye:

“[A]tmospheric and exciting . . . [Seven for a Secret] is swift but poignant, full of violent encounters and thrilling escapes.” —The Wall Street Journal

“This gripping, beautifully written, chilling, heartbreaking, and exciting novel . . . [Seven for a Secret] is an amazingly rich story, worthy of the word ‘epic’ . . . definitely one of the finest crime novels of the year.” —Mystery Scene

“[Gods of Gotham is a] rollicking historical novel . . . a sensational account. . . .”
—The New York Times Book Review

“If your concept of paradise is popping in a DVD of Gangs of New York while rereading Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, then put Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham on your to-buy list.”
—USA Today

A fitting conclusion

I found adjustable fitting and enjoyable conclusion of the trilogy.

One thing that hampered my enjoyment was a technical issue. The volume of the recording is rather low. It’s probably fine if your wear in-ear headphones, but I’m wearing on-ear earbuds, which always need a bit more oomph.

Great story, HORRIBLE narrator

The first book in this series was one of the required books for my daughter's senior year english class, we both listened to it and were both hooked and wanted to continue the series. We also loved book 2, so of course had to get book 3. What a let down. The change in narrator was a terrible choice. We understand that there were probably very good reasons behind changing narrators, but the new one selected was a poor replacement for the original. You could no longer tell which character was talking. All the life brought to the characters was lost. There were times when we were pretty convinced that Siri had taken over reading, or a computer generated voice similar to that of Stephen Hawking had hijacked the book.

Although we soldiered on to finish the story we wouldn't recommend it to anyone until it is released with a different and much better narrator.

I hate it when the reader of a series changes

I loved the reader for the first two in this series and when I downloaded this book and started listening I was very disappointed. I wish I had just read the third book because the story was wonderful but the reader did not live up to the standard set in the first two books.

Compassionate

Thoroughly engaging tale is greed and compassion in 1850s New York. Read all 3 novels for a full appreciation of the characters.

Compelling historical fiction to be read in order

No Spoilers!
In the third volume of the Gods of Gotham series, Lindsay Faye continues the story of Timothy Wilde, a "Copper Star" (cop) who becomes the first detective in the recently formed police department of 1840s New York City. Poverty, slavery, racism, the fight for women's rights, the early labor movement exploited children, sweatshops, and political corruption, are all part of the scope of these books, as well as drug addiction, and intolerance toward gays, Catholics, and immigrants. Ever present just under the surface is the decades long lead up to the Civil War. This all sounds relentlessly bleak, yet Faye's evocative descriptions and knowledge of history pull the reader into this world, and his sense of humor, compassion for his characters and understanding of human beings in their infinite variety and imperfection are ultimately uplifting. I look forward to reading more of Faye's work.
A word about the narrator, Kirby Heybourne: His ability to voice myriad accents and dialects is impressive, but it's his female voices that I really appreciated. No simpering or weird high-pitched caricatures here. All the women's voices sound like they should, yet all (and there are many) are distinctive and varied. I would love to hear him again.