Desperate Souls
Last year I reviewed Personal Demons, Greg Lamberson’s first novel in the Jake Helman Files series, and gave it an enthusiastic “hell yeah”. This year Lamberson returns with a second Helman novel titled Desperate Souls. Did the author suffer from sophomore jinx? Not on your freaking life, brother.
Desperate Souls picks up where Personal Demons left off. Almost a year later, hard boiled Jake Helman is a private eye trying to put the pieces of his life back together following his run-in with Nicholas Tower and the demon Cain.
But there’s no rest for Helman. Caught up in a drug lord’s bid to overtake New York with a hopped up zombie assassin army and whole lot of dark voodoo, Jake’s forced to overcome madness and mayhem on an epic scale as he fights to put an end to this madman’s quest and come out with his sanity intact.
Make no mistake about it, Greg Lamberson’s second outing into the world of Jake Helman is breathtaking and relentless. This is the occult detective genre done right, with finesse, charm, and non stop action from an author at the top of his game. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Lamberson’s literary approach is cinematic, bold, and an all or nothing bombastic explosion of thrills, chills, and heart pumping storytelling.
The only crime here is that we have to wait so long for the third volume in the Jake Helman Files: Cosmic Forces.
Desperate Souls will be available from Medallion Press in October. And that should make for a Happy Freaking Halloween.
