Waiting on Wednesday – Whisper in the Wind by Luke Arnold

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. In this latest Waiting on Wednesday, I check out an exciting and intriguing upcoming addition to a unique fantasy series with Whisper in the Wind by Luke Arnold.

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Back in 2020 I was lucky enough to get my hands on a very interesting fantasy book, The Last Smile in Sunder City. The debut novel of actor turned author Luke Arnold and the first book in his Fetch Phillips series, The Last Smile in Sunder City was a dark and compelling fantasy book with an excellent hook to it. The series is set in a fantasy realm where magic has been destroyed, and the various former magical creatures are now disfigured, depowered or dying, and the previously oppressed humans find themselves with an advantage. Following the titular character of Fetch Phillips a depressed human private investigator and odd-jobs man with a desire to help the formerly magical creatures, The Last Smile in Sunder City saw him attempt to find missing children, while also discovering a potential cure for the lost magic. This proved to be an outstanding book, especially with its unique setting and its compelling character arc around Fetch, who is shown to be personally responsible for the chaos engulfing the world. The Last Smile in Sunder City ended up being one of my favourite debuts and top Australian fiction releases in 2020, and I had a wonderful time reading it.

Arnold continued to impress with his Fetch Phillips series as the years continued. His second book, Dead Man in a Ditch, proved to be a worthy sequel, especially as it introduced a great overarching antagonist for the series, set up a great storyline about technology replacing magic and pushed the protagonist even further down a dark past. This all cumulated in a brilliant third book One Foot in the Fade, which was probably Arnold’s best book in the series. After discovering a former genie capable of returning magic to people, Fetch and several companions embark on an intense journey to recover an artefact that could empower her. This resulted in a particularly gripping read, especially as Fetch’s obsession with undoing his wrong leads him along a particularly dark path. Arnold ended One Foot in the Fade on an excellent note, as Fetch starts a new era in his journey and tries to find peace a different way.

Due to how much fun I have had with this series in the past, I have been keeping an eye out for another book from Arnold and I was happy to find out that he had a fourth Fetch Phillips book coming out next year. This fourth book, Whisper in the Wind, is set for release in April 2025, and will set Fetch on another adventure despite his desire to live a simple life.

Plot Synopsis:

The fourth installment of Luke Arnold’s Fetch Phillips series, Whisper in the Wind, takes readers to a very different Sunder City. One where government corruption is rampant and tensions are rising.

Fetch is done being a hero. Once a detective, all he wants now is to run his cafe in peace. Sunder City is still recovering from the sudden and violent end of magic, and if one man can’t solve all its problems, he can at least stop some people going hungry. But when a kid on the run shelters in Fetch’s cafe, and a chain of gruesome murders begins among Sunder’s high and mighty, trouble is brought to Fetch’s door.

There’s a word whispered on the wind, and that word is revolution…

This sounds like another pretty epic entry in the Fetch Phillips series, and I am very interested to see how Arnold is going to continue the series here. Based on the synopsis above, it seems that Whisper in the Wind is going to be set some point after the third book, with a retired protagonist forced back into his previous problems. This should be an excellent and natural continuation of the story elements that the author previously set up in the previous books, and I assume we are going to see some of the recurring antagonists and corruption from the previous novels come back to the fore. As such, I feel that Whisper in the Wind is going to be a very fascinating continuation to this series, and I am very curious to see how Arnold keeps his narrative going.

Due to the impressive quality of the previous novels in this series, I am definitely grabbing Whisper in the Wind when it comes out next year. Luke Arnold has shown himself to be a particularly skilled fantasy author, and I have become a huge fan of his Fetch Phillips series as a result. I cannot wait to see how this epic sounding book turns out and I have no doubt that Whisper in the Wind is going to be one of the more interesting fantasy novels of 2025.