Title: Redcap, Whitecap, Goblin, Thief
Series: The Blackwarren Heists: Book One
Author: Vaughn R. Demont
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 223 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy, Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: It’s been almost seven years since Vaughn R. Demont released the last book in this -verse, and all I can say is welcome back. Revisiting the City and getting reacquainted with the world and its characters was a little sentimental and a lot of fun.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: “A’right buddy, pay attention, ’cause I’m only gonna tell you this story once.”
In The City, just beyond the gaze of humanity, dwell dragons, lycanthropes, vampires, sorcerers, gods, and the Noble Fae holding court amongst them all. Dwarves work their wonders, Sluagh gather lore of the arcane , Brownies serve with unwavering loyalty, Trolls protect with exalted courage, Phouka tell their stories that make mortals into legend. Above them are the Sidhe, who rule over all as examples and bastions of grace, art, music, intelligence, and awe-inspiring beauty beyond the ken of mortal minds. All Fae serve as exemplars of what humanity can only dream to achieve.
And then there’s the Goblins.
Seen only as thieves, saboteurs, cutpurses and cutthroats, Goblins are considered the worst and lowest of the Fae for centuries, and all too many are happy to play the part they’re given. If the price is right.
And then there’s Nick: college drop-out, son of a murderer, slum rat, two-bit thief, out of work, out of money, and usually starving. So when a job is offered to rob a manor in the richest part of the City with a complete layout of where to find the loot, the job practically does itself, right? Simple. If only a double murder didn’t happen in the middle of it, which Nick is quickly blamed for.
With the whole City after his head, he’ll have to find the real killer and stay two steps ahead of the Phouka cop on his tail that Nick in no way has a crush on. It ain’t easy bein’ green, but ya get used to it.
Review: Nicholas Arsenne Blackwarren (“but call me Nick, we ain’t in fuckin’ church.”) is a Goblin, potty-mouthed and plainspoken, which did nothing less than endear him to me, and we are . . . well, we’re his buddy. That’s what he calls us as he obliterates the proverbial fourth wall that typically stands between readers and the characters in a story. We see what Nick sees, and he is a consummate narrator, making sure we’re paying attention to what he needs to teach us to help us understand his world and what’s happening in it. There are things he doesn’t want us to see, though, things that are private because “This ain’t that kinda story,” as he often reminds us, and I loved how this helped to develop and expose him as the guy who puts up a grumpy front but is as soft and susceptible to his emotions as anyone else.
Nick has a foot in two disparate worlds but decidedly leans towards his mother’s. His mom is a Whitecap, a Tinker—which is a dressed-up word for thief—while his pa is a Redcap, a cold-blooded killer, and he doesn’t hesitate to make Nick’s life a little bit of hell even from behind bars. It’s Pa, in fact, who gets Nicky in a world of trouble when he sends his son on a job to steal back the sword Pa used to murder his victims, a sword that ends up having significant meaning not only to this story but in the world it takes place. And hey, if Nick finds anything else worth the snatching while he’s there, five-finger discounts apply. When your only source of income is finders keepers, if he can carry it, there’s a fence in the family, taking what he can lay his hands on is a simple matter of trying to make a living. He will never, ever, become a killer, though. Nick is committed to keeping his cap nice and White, thanks.
Redcap, Whitecap, Goblin, Thief is set in the City, a world Demont’s readers have visited and gotten to know in his Broken Mirrors series—Coyote’s Creed, Lightning Rod, Community Service, Breaking Ties, and the spinoff House of Stone. While this book is a standalone, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved getting at least references to, if not page time with, some of the characters I’d met years ago. And while, yeah, “This ain’t that kinda story,” Nicky does have a thing for a cop named Thom Canmore (his brother is the MC in Lightning Rod), and despite this not being a romance kinda story, their relationship, as much as Nick doth protest so much, is an essential part of the trouble he finds himself in when some folks in the mansions he has recently broken into start showing up dead, marking him a wanted Goblin.
Nick goes into amateur sleuth mode, trying to keep a low profile while determined to find the real killer and clear his name, because when you’re a Goblin—pretty much the bottom rung of the social ladder, which makes some points about racism and stereotyping—the last person you can trust is a cop. Except Thom makes it real hard for Nick not to trust him because Thom likes Nick. Thom really likes Nick. Whether Nick trusting him is a good or bad decision is an integral part of the overall story, and factors into the resolution of this first book in The Blackwarren Heists series. While I was reading my reviews for the other City books to bring myself back up to speed, I couldn’t help but notice how often I mentioned getting choked up or teary eyed, and this must be a real habit? Because I got to the end of Redcap, Whitecap, Goblin, Thief and there I was again, more than a little verklempt over it despite Nick preparing me for it every step of the way. Let’s just say things happen that will surely be continued in the next book of the series, if not beyond, and my whole entire heart went out to Nick.
It’s been almost seven years since Vaughn R. Demont released the last book in this -verse, and all I can say is welcome back. Revisiting the City and getting reacquainted with the world and its characters was a little sentimental and a lot of fun. Nick is unapologetically who he is, he talks how he talks, is addicted to books, is a little shy, a little cheeky, a little vulnerable, doesn’t always see himself clearly, and I wouldn’t have wanted him any other way.
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