Spider's Lullaby

Title ~ Spider's Lullaby
Series ~ Deacon Chalk: Occult Bounty Hunter, #1.5
Author ~ James R. Tuck
Publisher ~ Kensington
Published ~ 26 June 2012
Genre ~ UF/Paranormal/Short

My Rating ~ 4 bites out of 5

Deacon Chalk is an Occult Bounty Hunter. He’s the guy you call when monsters need killing. Not all monsters are bad though and when Deacon, his apprentice/friend Tiffany and a Were-spider named Charlotte get back to Charlotte’s place after a night on the town they find all of the Were-spiders in her cluster dead, her egg sac gone and Ronnie, the egg sac babysitter for the night, missing, too. With Charlotte predicting the egg sac of spiders will hatch around dawn they have only a few hours to find who took it and where it is. Because if the spiders hatch with no one to bind to they will kill until they can be killed. However, if the person who took them binds them to him and he has evil intent then he has gained a shitload of little killing machines. The clock is ticking…

This short story takes place after Blood and Bullets, but it can read as a standalone. It’s nicely written with a plot that quickly proceeds from Point A to Point B to Point C and has characters that are well-developed. The copious amount of detail tends to bog the story down just a touch though it is nice to be well-informed. I’m still enjoying this series very much and look forward to more of Deacon Chalk.

*Book source ~ Many thanks to the author for providing me with a review copy. Please see disclaimer page.