Finder is a fantasy fiction novel written by Emma Bull

Emma Bull

Emma Bull is a science fiction and fantasy author whose best-known novel is War for the Oaks, one of the pioneering works of urban fantasy. She has participated in Terri Windling's Borderland shared universe, which is the setting of her 1994 novel Finder...

 and published in 1994.

Setting

The Borderlands

The Borderland Series

Borderland is a series of urban fantasy novels and stories created for teenage readers by Terri Windling. The series is set in Bordertown, a dystopian metropolis that lies along the border between "the Elflands" and "The World". The series consists of five anthologies and three novels to date...

 setting of Finder is the collaborative creation of several authors, including Will Shetterley—Emma Bull's husband. It posits the abrupt intrusion of Elfland, a walled territory of unspecified extent, into the everyday World. Erratic leakage of magical effects across its edge has left an abandoned zone, The Borderlands, including at least one abandoned settlement: Bordertown. Though not so large a place as Minneapolis, where the author's War for the Oaks

War for the Oaks

War for the Oaks is a fantasy novel by Emma Bull. The book tells the story of Eddi McCandry, a rock musician who finds herself unwillingly pulled into the supernatural faerie conflict between good and evil...

 is set, this context puts Finder into the urban fantasy

Urban fantasy

Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods...

 category. Bordertown is populated by misfits from both World and Elfland, living in a near-anarchy that includes volunteer collectives running restaurants, grouchy artisans making paper, and assorted artists making odd adornments, all sympathetically described.

Characters and plot summary

The main point-of-view character has renamed himself 'Orient', in the sense of 'align directions', on arrival in Bordertown. He is nicknamed "Finder" for his magical gift that lets him—or compels him to—locate things and people. His working partner is Tick-Tick, an elf woman whose gift for making and fixing technical things was as disturbing to her parents as Orient's talent was to his. A mysterious death opens the plot, making it something of a murder mystery as well as fantasy, and Orient's collaboration with volunteer cop Sunny Rico and her working partner Linn, also an elf, adds a police procedural element. Romance creeps in as Orient and Sunny cope with the plot's sequence of disasters.

The opening death appears to be a drug-related killing, the drug in question being aimed at elf-wannabees from the human population. It does indeed make those who take it look more elf-like, if not so healthy as most elves, but then kills them. However, when both Tik-Tik and Linn fall ill along with many of the elvish residents of Bordertown, the drug-affected humans are understood to be carriers for a virulent mutation of a known minor disease of elves. Discovery of just who has let this plague loose and with what motivation takes the plot to its close.

Reception

Terri Windling

Terri Windling

Terri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. Windling has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award...

characterized Finder as "a mature and emotionally rich mystery novel . . . witty, stylish, and ultimately moving."