Overall, I liked the originality of Josh Lanyon's writing in this collection. Having said that, I cannot give the book more than 3 stars. Why? Quite frankly, I don't like stories written in first person. The only author who I think can pull the first person POV successfully is James Patterson and his Alex Cross novels, so the minute I started reading "Collected Volume #2," and I knew it was in first person, it had a strike against it. While Lanyon's writing is solid, his characters flawed, realistic and original, the flow of the stories just did not work for me while using "I" instead of "He."

Out of the five stories, the one I enjoyed most was "Dark Horse." It was suspenseful and thrilling, paying homage to the classic movie, "Gaslight." Sean is a Hollywood actor being stalked by a crazy fan, and Dan is the LAPD cop assigned to protect him. They fall in love, but when Sean's stalker is supposedly killed, and the threat is gone, will Dan believe that his lover is still in danger as creepy notes continue to arrive at thier home or will Dan pass it off as Sean's fragile state of mind crumbling into insanity? This story was very well-written and had a cast of well-developed secondary characters that weren't two dimensional. I am looking forward to the prequel/sequel to "Dark Horse," which should be published this year, according to Mr. Lanyon's web site.

While I generally think the hype around Lanyon's writing is deserved, I hope for his future novels he will move into writing in the third person, as I think it would add depth and a better overall flow to his stories. If you don't have a problem with first person POV, then you will enjoy this collection, if like myself don't like that style of writing, then you might want to give this book a pass. ( )