In Death’s Shadow

everything you probably want in a novel

When fighting in the Sandbox, Ari had a rough time. The night of the werewolves was no picnic. By the time the battle was over, Ari had a new friend, his guardian angel, "Sam." Except Sam is a retasked grim reaper, and his ideas of protecting Ari can get ... messy. It's getting so bad, the cops think that Ari is a serial killer. But when the werewolves come back to finish what they started, Ari is going to need more than an Angel of Death to survive the battle to come. Overall? The book is so much fun I didn't put it down from the moment I picked it up. As of this minute, I'm glad book two has finally come out. Kal Spriggs brings a lot of wonderful little touches to his writing style. He has one of the better opening lines I've seen since "the building was on fire and it was not my fault." The writing style is smooth, with off-hand casual descriptions and backstory feels effortless — largely executed with nice sharp background notes that leave a nice little sting and then continues with the rest of the story ... But boy, does the reader feel these little touches. There is also a lot of casual humor with how Sam (our Guardian Reaper) chooses to protect our hero — but Kal never resorts to a Rube Goldberg mechanic to describe them. In terms of little touches, there are lines like “I’d managed to avoid ruining this set of clothing with blood at least.” It's the little things that make this book stand out. We have great action, dark humor, easily executed backstory that is all relevant to the plot, along with some great world-building at a pace Mickey Spillane would have loved.