The third and final book in the (YA and up) Flash Gold Chronicles (so far, at any rate) sees Kali intent on making an airship so she can escape from Dawson City and the cold of the oncoming winter.  The gold rush is in full flow, and the forests around are being denuded – there’s not much around to see them through to the spring.  Kali is an engineer – but in a steampunk world, engineering is a little different from what you might expect of the historical gold rush era. 

Kali takes her bounty hunter beau on a search through the forest on her SAB – a self-automated bicycle, running on steam power – on the trail of a human monster killing native women in a horrible manner.  She’s diverted by a pirate attack from an airship, and thinks what a great idea it would be to get rid of the pirates and salvage their airship – thus saving herself months of work.

Well, it’s not quite as easy as that, and between meetings with different people who each want the other one taken out of the way for various reasons, Kali eventually finds herself back on that airship, in a life or death situation for more than herself.

Peacemaker follows the first two books, Flash Gold and Hunted, rounding off the story reasonably well, but with plenty of scope for further adventures.  I was just thinking there was too much near-romance and it had got a little slow, when WHAM the pace changed and it was a non-stop switchback of story telling all the way home.

I did stop to admire some beautiful phrasing:

A breeze scuttled down Main Street, swatting at a newspaper page too mired in the mud to escape, though it rattled and whipped in a valiant effort to do so.

and

“Are you sure you want to be that insulting,” Kali asked, fishing in a pocket, “considering I’m standing right behind you with—” she grabbed the first tool that she felt and pulled it out, “—pliers in my hand?”

I don’t know if Ms Buroker has any plans for more in this series, but I know she’s been hard at work on the Emperor’s Edge series and other works.  I’ve got a few of those nestling on my kindle app waiting to be brought out and read some time.  We’ll just have to wait and see if Kali ever makes it out of Dawson.  I hope so. I want more Flash Gold!

Peacemaker (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #3)  by Lindsay Buroker.

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Book Review: Peacemaker by Lindsay Buroker
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