A Shot in the Dark

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 22. AUG. 2011

Stewart (A Devil in the Details) provides non-stop action as Jesse James Dawson tries to take a vacation. Champion for hire Jesse battles demons to earn back his clients' souls while risking his own. Regularly beaten, battered, and bloodied in the line of duty and haunted by increasingly frequent nightmares about a demon called the Yeti who nearly killed him four years ago, Jesse looks forward to relaxing on his annual guys-only paintball trip into the mountains of Colorado. As they arrive at the remote cabin, Jesse and his friends are attacked by the Yeti, who has returned with backup: an army of vicious undead. Under siege and running out of options, Jesse must put himself on the line again to save the soul of a teenage boy and the lives of his friends. Solidly a bridging story that establishes threads for future books, Stewart's well-developed characters and taut pacing allow the story to hum with tension despite its straightforward plot.