Firstly thank you to Kerry Alan Denney for the advance copy of Stalking Gideon Cain but other commitments prevented me from completing the book before the publication date.

The story starts intriguingly with Brendan Callahan-McCallum (aka Gideon Cain) meeting in real life of one of his fictional characters. This picks at his mind during which time we discover his literary and personal background. There are other, similar appearances until he discovers what is behind them.

Denney has previously published several novels and he clearly has good writing skills. His descriptions are detailed and as the story is predominantly told from Brendan’s perspective we get to fully understand his character. I say “predominantly” because we do get action from a few other characters, including, rather oddly, a chapter written from the perspective of a dog!

He also had a tendency to use a few words repeatedly. Call me a nerd but Kindle made it easy for me to count the 15 uses of mash, mashing or mashed.

During the narrative we met an interesting mix of characters, no doubt inspired by real people that the author has met. Most appeared true to life although the villain came over as a power fanatic whose actions and desires appeared to grossly exceed the hurt suffered. I also found Callie and Shirley a little unreal; I almost expected them to have supernatural powers.

The story moved at a reasonable pace and it was easy to follow. After the appearances of the femmes fatale there were various attacks, chases and escapes with a dramatic confrontation to end the story. Some aspects of the plot were unreal and at times I felt the story dragged, partly because it failed to get me sufficiently interested in the possible outcomes.

Stalking Gideon Cain is a passable story giving a reasonable read with some surprises and lively action. I have awarded three and a half stars.