5.0 out of 5 stars
An un-put-downable joy to read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 29 April 2019
An un-put-downable joy to read, with many amusing parts, in which I could not stop smiling. Also, having quickly become invested in the very human and likeably flawed characters, I occasionally read with heart in mouth through suspense, anxiety and worry about what will happen next in life-threatening moments.
.
This is the first (but written later as a prequel or origin story) of an addictive series of books in which a former military man, Tempest Michaels, attempts to set up and run his own civilian private investigation agency, called Blue Moon Investigations, in the county of Kent in South East England. He needs an income.
.
Although starting off as a one-man band, as it were, he is occasionally assisted for muscle, moral support, and back-up by another former soldier with whom he had served and who is unusually large in stature, and a varied band of friends. Also he is sometimes accompanied to work by his two beloved but diminutive miniature dachshunds, who seem to be a big hit with the ladies.
.
Unfortunately his initial advertisement for the new-start business, suffers a typo (or else some mischief) in the back room of the local newspaper and so he is wrongly presented to the public as a paranormal investigator. This is an embarrassing and unexpected disaster because Tempest does not believe in the paranormal, and had no intention (nor knowledge, nor equipment) to investigate it. Fortunately he meets an eccentric local specialist bookseller who is a firm believer and knows all about it.
.
Despite this initial advertising calamity, work trickles in, unexpectedly. Several desperate clients start to contact Tempest with bizarre and spooky or even terrifying problems, which they are convinced to be paranormal, and which the police will not, or cannot, take seriously nor look into. Some of these seem serious or dangerous enough to be investigated, so Tempest agrees to do so; not at first having any idea how even to begin.
.
As Tempest does not believe in the paranormal, at all, he sets about trying to find a rational explanation and a human perpetrator behind each such problem that he is hired to solve.
.
There soon seems to be no shortage of worried clients, as the series progresses, so the business soon becomes potentially profitable and he still has to hit the ground running. He soon builds himself a favourable reputation and local fame, and the business expands; even in one episode taking him abroad and into great danger in the French Alps.
.
This particular book, being the very first episode (though they can be read in any order), is mainly about two cases: firstly a local retired and wealthy lesser-known screen celebrity being stalked and frightened by someone whom he claims to be a werewolf. Additionally there is another case of a local small shopkeeper who is suffering mysterious disappearances of stock from the shelves at night, taken by someone unknown, who seems to be invisible (at least to his night security cameras).
.
Learning and improvising as he goes along, Tempest solves both cases but not without difficulty, human mistakes, real alarming danger and setbacks, or even getting arrested by the police; which seems by later books to become a recurring occupational hazard. Additionally, throughout, although there are many moments of humour, there are also genuinely scary moments.
.
A breathless, exciting, funny and enjoyable read, in which much white-knuckle adrenaline is triggered both for the principal characters and for the reader. Not a bad achievement from the comfort of a domestic armchair, or during bed-time reading.
One person found this helpful
