By Guido Henkel
Review by Robert Brouhard
When offered a review copy of this book from Thunder Peak Publishing, I was more than a little apprehensive. When it arrived, I was a little surprised. The cover art by Gary Crump was very interesting featuring a sexy female vampire in a lacey little number and gothic building in the background. I do like it. The paperback book actually has the texture and overall feel of a small digest magazine (it even has a couple of ads in it, but that isn’t uncommon in the back of some small press books… but these were in various places). At a little over 60 pages, it is also longer than most chapbooks. One cool little fact is that this book was included in grab bags at the 36th Annual Saturn Awards in June 2010… so now, Sam Raimi, J. J. Abrams, James Cameron, and Quentin Tarantino are possibly running around with this book… or they recycled it.
One interesting thing about the Jason Dark series is that you can read them all for free online, you can order eBooks, or order physical chapbooks. With 6 chapbooks so far at about 60 pages each, you have a nice novel’s worth of reading available there.
I really enjoyed this story overall. It was a fun and quick diversion. For being called a “Ghost Hunter,” Jason Dark doesn’t hunt any ghosts in this volume of the series… just the undead. The vampires in here are evil and they don’t sparkle. One odd thing, they do have beating hearts and pumping blood… but not every author’s version of a vampire is the same. Oh, this book is predictable to a fault, but I couldn’t stop reading it. It is a very pleasant and breezy read, and, who knows, it may not be predictable to you… maybe.
General plot synopsis: Jason Dark, a man who hunts the supernatural creatures for the evil they are. In this chapter of his adventures, he stumbles upon a theater that is running the same popular vampire play each night. The problem? The actors are really vampires. *GASP*! When Jason Dark discovers this, he and his friends have to deal with the problem. During this process there are some cool fictional references that I really enjoyed. I don’t want to give away anymore than that.
Negatives: I am going to be honest, it needed a really good proofreading (missing words, wrong words, etc), but the story kept me reading. Repetitive descriptive word usage was there too, but that was easily looked past. One fun thing, some of the proofreading problems did cause a huge laugh in me. One thing mentioned is that Jason Dark and his companion ride around town in a “chaise lounge.” Now, there is a chaise, which is a carriage, but a chaise lounge (or chaise longue) is a chair. The image of this sent me into giggles, twice.
If you think you might be interested, head on over to the Jason Dark site and read an online version… or pick up a physical copy for just a few bucks. The story is fun and engaging. I will give another one of his stories a try soon.
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