Dervla McTiernan’s Australian-set story is much better than her American tales, but it does smack of the grift that a series of Australian authors seem to have with Audible at the moment (more power to them) and isn’t as fleshed out as a full novel – even if it’s only 25% shorter than the execrable Nina.
Two separate narrators tell the stories of Flynn and Noah, who basically have a parade of misfortunes thrown at them in their respective youths, the sort of tribulations that would have seemed gratuitous to Job. When their stories dovetail, very, very late in the piece (seriously, by the time you get to anything in the blurb, it’s almost over), McTiernan goes into overdrive and puts in one detail too many about the web our heroes found themselves entangled in.
Sterling work from Ben Chapple and Harriet Gordon-Anderson grounds the story somewhat, but you do have to wonder how bloodthirsty and sensational the modern McTiernan is. There are some absolute clunker sentences that would never make it on a page, but The Fireground is keen and some of the characters eventually make somewhat sensible decisions. Really, how long can the silliness last?
