This was going to end badly.

A collection of short stories featuring Jake Stark, a Sentinel (or monster investigator-hunter) reporting to end employed by Church Corps. "My job," he says, "is to make your problems go away." Those little problems like a bat shaped vampire, a fire incendiary demon, the In-Between inside an haunted house - you get the picture. Although he believes he has no supernatural powers, he is well clothed and armed by the Corps, and a description of this is given in every story, plus he has access to information on the dark net and an old archivist, John, who can give him additional background knowledge, like how to get rid of the Thing in question. And he has a friend, local Sheriff Tom Parry.

Written in the first person, this is the Stark's eye view of the troubles in his area; wry humour throughout as Jake bemoans his paperwork, relieves his near constant hunger with hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza, and coffee which has to be made just right. Although he's doing a hero's job, inside he much rather run away. But he is sustained by the lord, the church and Christian quotes and relics. The stories themselves are not much but the man is great.

And narrator Bryan Anderson is that man. A deepish gruff voice, deliberately slow paced, a bit shambling, perfectly suited to the character he portrays. Good intonation, too, and expression of the text. His voicing of friend Tom is distinctive as well as that of the other occasional characters. All female parts, and this is only an odd sentence here and there (mostly of waitresses) are performed by Sonia Anderson.

An enjoyable, different take on ghost buster or fearless vampire hunter books, but a bit heavy on the religious beliefs aspect. However, the novelty of the humour does wear thin after the first few stories. My thanks to the rights holder of A Bump In the Night for freely gifting me a complimentary copy, at my request, via Audiobook Boom. A good way to fill shortish car journies where close attention to the action isn't needed.

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Pure Joy!

The author of this book D. A. Provencher have done an excellent job here, this is a genre which now I’m thinking to check more often, I enjoyed this book because it wasn’t about scary stuff so much, it was more like a detective story which was fun.
Performance by the narrators was also done right turning it into a great enjoyable audiobook.

Recommended for all without a doubt !



I truly believe that I gave this audiobook an honest review even so that I got it for free.

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1 person found this helpful

A great book with an old fashion detective feel

The narration immediately put me in mind of a Dick Tracy type detective story. Especially where you have the officer telling him what's going on and how they need his help.

I like the level of detail that the author gives to the action and I felt myself drawn in to the world that's created for us. The characters are big and bold and it's quite intense in places. Although absorbing with it.

I found myself invested in our hero and wanting him to win, which is a must in my opinion, and I really like Jake Stark as the main/leading character.

Very enjoyable

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

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