Jasper Hawk

Many thanks to Jasper Hawk and PublishNation for the free ebook I was given in exchange for an honest review of his book Incubus. Initially, I was quite skeptical. The Glossary of Abbreviations provided by the author prior to the first chapter was overwhelming for me and I doubted whether or not I could continue to read it. However, I love forensic thrillers, so I took to heart the author’s encouragement (“Be reassured, you don’t need to understand any of it to follow the story. If you show more don’t like the look of this bit, don’t read it!”) and tried it anyway. I am very thankful for his foresight concerning this as I really enjoyed the book! The two protagonists are delightful and their relationship, both professional and personal, is fun and engaging to follow as it changes throughout. Most of the supporting characters are wonderful additions to the overall storyline. Surprisingly, I felt the antagonist had a minor role. I found myself wanting to hear more from him, as my expectation was a storyline focused on a serial rapist. But it actually includes much more of the forensics side of things. By the end, I was caught up with our protagonists and several of the supporting characters. The author concludes with, “to be continued…”, which sounds to me like a promise of more to come! I wholeheartedly say, “Yes, please!”. show less

The main characters in Necromania run a forensics lab, and since the author himself was a forensic scientist, the details surrounding the workings of the lab feel true-to-life. The story held my interest, even though the first 50 or so pages were heavy on the scientific details of the testing and equipment—I found myself skimming through some of it. The story then became far more engrossing, with many well-rounded characters: a serial killer, a possible art forger, a mad scientist, and the show more crew from a forensics lab! What more could you possibly need in a thriller? show less

This is the second book of this series, it's helpful to read Incubus first for character background. Jasper Hawk has done extensive research (or possible tech himself) and using a ton of medical/forensic verbiage, but he did include a helpful "cheat sheet" at the beginning of both books.

I gave this book 4*, I enjoyed the storyline and kept me interested. I wanted to solve the crime along with the characters and appreciate the character development intertwining throughout the story.

It is not show more 5* for me due to all the technical discussions, while I appreciate being provided correct information even in fiction, I feel the discussions could of been cut short and still receive the same storyline experience.

Also- probably because I'm American, I had a hard time following some of the Brit slang used by some of the characters. Probably a personal issue though and not a jab at the author or region, just had to work harder to understand.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the book and would read follow-up stories involving John, Mandy and team if there should be more in the future. If you like CSI type stories, this is definitely right for you! show less

This was provided to me, free of charge, via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to LibraryThing, the publisher, and author for the copy.

This was an interesting read in that it had me curious as to how the crimes were being committed and the small snippets from the perp’s POV were a nice touch. It is a bit hard to read some of the descriptions of the crimes (just that it’s never easy to read details of crimes) but they were well written and show more believable. I didn’t love how the MC seemed to constantly lust after his coworker but that was a minor annoyance. Overall, a decent read and one worth checking out if crime novels are your thing. I probably wouldn’t purchase it as a physical copy, but I also don’t feel like it was time wasted. Solid 3/5 stars! show less