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There’s something about a detective story that’s told in the first person.  When it’s done right, it just works.  That is, hands down, the case with Grey Lady.  But it’s far more than you classic who done it? mystery.  It’s also a wild ride with a riveting plot that pulls you in at the start and keeps you locked locked within the pages for the duration.  Everything centers around a character named Aristotle Socarides, better know as “Soc” to his friends and adversaries alike.  And while this is book 7 in a series, that shouldn’t prevent anyone from jumping into the series right here.  I haven’t read the earlier books yet (Though they have all been added to my to-read list now).

This a tale of murder, a rich man’s mental break with reality, and the search for the great white whale immortalized by Herman Melville.  What do all of these things have in common?  Not a single thing, unless you’re Paul Kemprecos.  But for an author with his pedigree, they’re the base ingredients for a fantastic mystery thriller than involves lost American history, scrimshaw, hive based drone technology, and cannibalism.
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I have so many things that I want to say but I can’t because I don’t want to spoil this amazing novel for anyone.  So no spoilers here.  It’s enough to say that this book takes the team, and a couple of characters in particular, to some very interesting and unexpected places.  Adding to the fun, Omega takes what we know about the series so far— and some of the characters— and just turns all of that on its ear.  There’s some really brilliant stuff that you wouldn’t expect to see surface this far into a well-established series.

Of course we get the requisite gun toting, ass-kicking that we expect from our favorite special-ops team, and a few things are revealed that threaten to make us look back at the earlier books in an entirely different way.
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This book reads is if it were written by an author in the mid-1900′s. This is made all the more fun, knowing that Sean Ellis is a modern day thriller author who has effectively revived genre fiction from a nearly forgotten age.

Shadow the Falcon’s Wings was fun and unique in so many ways. First of all, it’s a period adventure taking place in an unspecified time, apparently circa 1930′s or 1940′s. Secondly, it’s clear that Mr. Ellis had a great deal of fun with the technology of that time period while playing with what would’ve been considered futuristic technology to the people of that time. All of this plays out in a thrilling and fun adventure that is steeped in extreme creativity that is nothing short of riveting.
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The Emerald Scepter is one of those rip-roaring adventures that I didn’t see coming.  It was a book that I found intriguing after reading its description online.  But it turned out to be one of those books that will never have a description that can do it justice.  We’re talking a 500 page novel that is cover to cover action and suspense.  The characters and interesting and engaging while the plot leaves the reader with a constantly evolving understanding of the protagonist’s past and present.

All of this is an exceptional treat for fans of the thriller genre as many will recognized Paul Kemprecos’s name from his collaborative work with Clive Cussler on The Numa Files (the Kurt Austin series).  And while it comes as no surprise that Paul is a gifted story-teller, The Emerald Scepter proves that he has saved his best work for his solo career.
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Every once in a while I come across a book that is pure genre fun.  Being a big fan of classic monster movies, I’ve been disappointed at the way vampire fiction has devolved in recent years.  The target audience appears to have shifted and with it the content and quality of the fiction has degraded.  Whatever happened to classic vampire fiction?  I want the really old school stuff like Bram Stoker’s original novel, Dracula— or the low budget Hammer Horror films.  The current trend in vampire fiction is enough to turn me off the topic altogether.

If you’ve been feeling like I have, there’s great news!  Kane Gilmour’s, The Crypt of Dracula, is a novela that is just what we’ve been waiting for.  It’s the tried and true vampire story that gets your heart pounding and once again brings life to the things that go bump in the night.  This is the kind of story Bram Stoker would write if he were still alive and kicking.  Very much in the same vein (sorry, it had to be done) as Stoker’s original Dracula tale, this is a period story which takes place in Transylvania.  A grieving stone mason is hired by a mysterious Count to repair his damaged and neglected castle located outside a remote village populated by troubled, xenophobic farmers who have come to fear the night.
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