Loup-Garou: The Beast of Harmony Falls (The Ian McDermott, Ph.D., Paranormal Investigator Series Book 1)

Red Tide: The Flavel House Horror / Vampires of the Morgue (The Ian McDermott, Ph.D., Paranormal Investigator Series Book 2)

The Ian McDermott Series, Books 1 and 2, were not bad but they were not great either. The concept, a cryptozoologist investigating unsolvable crimes, has potential. In the first book, Ian is looking into the case of missing hikers near Harmony Falls. He makes friends with the local sheriff and his deputy. Ian is a poor soul. He lost his wife and daughter in a car accident several years before and now lives in a camper and various liquor bottles. Working with the Harmony Falls police rekindles his love of investigations and he finds a purpose in life again.

In the second book, Ian goes directly from Harmony Falls to Astoria, Oregon to help another police department with a series of grisly slayings. He meets a local writer of horror stories who has quite a few secrets. Again Ian the driving force in the investigations and attempting to solve the crimes.

As I said, the concept, especially the future laid out at the end of book 2 has a lot of potential. There is a serious problem with the books in the way the dialogue is written. It is awkward and clunky. There is not a natural flow to it. All the characters always identify who they are speaking to by name, every time they speak to them. It gets tedious. I would suggest Mr. Aslin look at the conversations in the Adrian’s Undead series. They flow naturally and do not seem forced. I know conversation is a very hard thing to write but it really does need to be worked on in these two books.

I purchased both books because the descriptions intrigued me. I read the mixed bag of reviews on Amazon but still decided to try them. I would give the first two books of the series a solid three stars but am not sure whether I will continue with it when the next book is published. ( )