Sheep Book Review: Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis

Hard Spell (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation #1)

By: Justin Gustainis

Paperback, 400 pages

Published July 26th2011 by Osprey Publishing

ISBN13: 9780857661159

Meet Stan Markowski of the Scranton PD’s Occult Crimes Unit

“Like the rest of America, Scranton’s got an uneasy ‘live and let unlive’ relationship with the supernatural. But when a vamp puts the bite on an unwilling victim, or some witch casts the wrong kind of spell,that’s when they call me.

“My name’s Markowski. I carry a badge.

“Also, a crucifix,some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets…”

I had a some what hard time reading this book, and it has nothing to do with the author or the book itself. When I was reading it, I had the voice of Sgt. Joe Friday and at times K from Men in Black standing in for the voice of Stan. Knowing this, I had a hard time identifying with Stan throughout the whole book.

The story itself was a decent one, taking place in Scranton PA. Now why Scranton? Well it seems there is a flux of Lay Lines that meet up in Scranton and of course that is pretty much a massive magnet for anything and everything paranormal. Including Goblins that are Meth addicts,which I thought was hysterical.

It seems that someone is going around killing vampires, and Stan needs to find out who and why. The investigation is not an easy one to follow, there are a few informants involved, a high ranking vampire that is somewhat willing to help in the investigation,but his information tends to be cryptic. Then the investigation eventually turns into a cat and mouse game.

There are a few family issues that are brought up during the story, both with Stan and Vollman (who is the vampire helping in the investigation). Stan is dealing with guilt issues that deal with both his wife and daughter. Vollman is dealing with issues about the fact that he turned his own son into a vampire. Stan’s guilt is a key part of the background as to why he hates vampires, but at the same time is a bit of a contradiction when it comes to his feelings about vampires.

I would say that if you enjoy reading paranormal cop stories to check this one out, and I personally had a hard time getting through it since this is not a normal style that I have read before. Along with the fact that there are no chapters in the book, I found that to be a bit difficult to go by since I tend to read by chapters.

2.5/5

DD [edit done by TD]