The Fifth Ward: Friendly Fire

By: Dale Lucas

Narrated by: Simon Vance

The second audiobook in a series featuring two misfit partners working a case in a crime-ridden city filled with orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, and mages - The Lord of the Rings meets Lethal Weapon.

In the most dangerous district of the city, the Fifth Ward, Rem and Torval have been perfecting their good cop, bad cop routine while protecting residents from drug-dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, and humans being typical humans.

But when a perplexing case of arson leads to a series of gruesome, unsolvable murders, the two partners must challenge their own assumptions and loyalties if they are to preserve their partnership, wrest justice from the chaos, and keep their ward from tearing itself apart.

For more from Dale Lucas, check out The Fifth Ward: First Watch.

©2018 Dale Lucas (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A glorious tour through fantasy's seamier side. A wilder ride than Middle Earth, and you'll love every minute of it!" (Jon Hollins, author of the Dragon Lords series)

"A brilliant premise, wonderfully told. A city that breathes, and heroes you can't help but root for." (Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld)

Great story

Dale Lucas has knocked it out of the park again! He has an amazing way of drawing you in and immersing the reader/listener into the world of these two complex and exciting characters. Can't wait for book 3!

Fantasy Adventure

As usual Lucas creates an exciting story. Law Enforcement meets Fantasy Medieval. The main characters being a human and dwarf partners.

Fantastical buddy cops are as good as it sounds

I recommend this book to those that enjoyed the first as well as anyone that thinks a buddy cop story taking place in a swords and sorcery fantasy setting sounds as amazing as it is novel.

Since Friendly Fire is a sequel, this book has our two protagonists’ relationship fully figured out and developed, so it is not the focus this time around. What is the focus is Torval’s own life and relationship with his past, as well as that of two factions within the Fifth Ward. The plot, while certainly fantastical at its roots, is one that has happened throughout real life history and even in current days as a powerful guild goes up against the dwarf community. This setup, which is explained in the synopsis, actually kept me from the book for a year because I didn’t want to deal with that kind of thing in my escapism. This was quite honestly a mistake and you shouldn’t make the same one. The message and action are certainly poignant, but it isn’t preachy or distracting from the story of Rem and Torval being given a case and told to solve it no matter what.

So if you liked the first book, police procedurals with a spin, and a serious book with a good peppering of humor, I would go ahead and continue this series. I know I will, and I won’t wait a year this time around.

Thank you Dale and Simon - Great Novel

I loved the first book, was excited to find out about the next book coming up on being done (As I write this Dale is working on the 3rd coming out shortly based on his twitter). This was a wonderful continuation of a previous story. However, if you are just thinking about reading this one, I feel you could start at this point and still feel comfortable in the story. They are connected, but not dependent. In some ways the style reminds me of Glen Cooks Garret serious. Taking a possible real world, then putting it into the fantasy setting and taking on all the other challenges that a “flat foot” would need to do to keep the peace. As in the review of did of the first book, great effort by author and narrator. I’m waiting on the 3rd book. Side note, this is also one of those folks you can check out on twitter that does interact with his fans. I like that style, shows a person that really does care about their readers (Vs just saying how much they like us). Take a chance, listen away and fall in love with this .. hopefully series with many books to come.

Deeper than the write up appears

This may seem like the plot of other books- how do you police different species living together? Grumpy old cop gets young new partner... but the characters were deeper than I expected, the story doesn’t follow every expected trope, the plot is well crafted and it has surprises and twists. I listened to the first two books consecutively and will definitely be ready for the next book.

The fantasy label felt like lip service

This was a rather dreary detective story of arson investigation, where the biggest leads involve hatred between two groups. Substituting speciesism for racism did nothing to transform this into anything more than your average police procedural.

I like cop procedurals, but if the genre is fantasy, I need much more fantasy. Other than details about dwarf culture, the first half was devoid of magic, creatures, or unique settings. The second half had slightly more fantasy elements, but nowhere near enough to distinguish this book.

I also found this lacking in humor and action, especially with the summary promising Lethal Weapon meets Lord of the Rings. The best part of this book was the buddy cop relationship between Rem and Torval, but even that was standard. Aside from an occasional F bomb, this was PG level, with zero sex and TV-style violence. I’m afraid this was a very lukewarm listen for me.

little to no grow of characters

main storyline is not bad. If looking for book for just killing time and waiting for better book this is good one.