Trail of Blood

Publisher's Summary

Occult investigator Sam Logan receives a cryptic call about a man’s missing son that leads him and his partner, Carter Mason - a disabled veteran - into a small town infested with vampires. With each hour they spend in town after dark they discover just how deep the infestation runs and just how unlikely father and son will be reunited.

Trail of Blood is an exciting, blood-soaked, pause-resister for fans of The Lost Boys and Hellblazer.

©2018 Keith Latch, Steve Wands (P)2019 Keith Latch, Steve Wands

Good story

Lost boys meets Salems lot
A father hires vampire hunters to save his recently turned son
Well narrated with sequel potential fans of traditional vampires will enjoy this
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great read or listen

I must admit when I first started this book I was a little put off by narrator it seemed a little cheesy. But after a little bit I got used to his style of reading and even liked it. It reminded me of a B rated horror flick which I might add is not a bad thing as I watch them all the time. Not everything including horror has to be so serious all the time. As for the plot itself it kept me intrigued wanting to hear how it all ended and I’m looking forward to seeing where it all goes in the next book if there is one I would be very interested in following where these guys are headed next in their fight to take back the towns even country from the undead. I received this title in exchange for unbiased review which I have given and had I not been given it for free I would still like to read it and will be recommending to friends as well.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

BREATHTAKING and HAUNTING!

First, I have to start off by stating that I got this book free of charge in exchange for a review, but as I always state, this does not in any way impact my review. My reviews are always honest and my own.

I found this to be extremely fresh and new in the line of supernatural. It is a must read and I highly recommend.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Hunting for vampires!

Set in New York, it has a very noir private eye detective feel for it. Sam & Carter need a break or their PI business is going to going under. Good for them that a distressed father calls them hoping they can help find his son, who he is sure has recently turned vampire.

I agree with Carter – there’s nothing more annoying than teen vamps. And unfortunately, the town has a new crop of them. Our main teen starts off a bit sympathetic. He recently lost his mom and his dad has been steadily increasing his drinking. So his home life isn’t too good. Luckily, he has a supportive group of friends…. friends who have found some vamps to turn them into vamps. Later on, this kid turns into a whiny vamp.

Mofan is in charge of the local werewolf (or lycos) pack. Sam has previous dealings with him & he knows his involvement means nothing good. He was my favorite bad guy in this story, being dangerous and business oriented.

I did find some of the slang a little dated. But that mostly went hand-in-hand with the very limited female characters. There were few and far between and were sex objects. The guys also had back hand compliments or gender-weighted insults. All of that was a bit of turn off for me.

Over all, the story had enough action to keep the plot moving forward. It was a little predictable but it was also a bit fun. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Matthew Berry did a decent job with the story. He had a great voice for Mofan the werewolf. I also liked his various whiny teen vamp voices. He played the distressed father well, carrying those emotions from the page to the narration. He did butcher this one accent…. I’m not sure what he was going for. Australian? Italian? The pacing was a little slow but I took care of that by upping my play speed. There were no tech issues with this recording. 3.5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Matt Berry. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Vampires, werewolves and mystery

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

As a huge vampire fan I enjoyed this modern twist on a very King like story. Even mentions salems lot in the story. Plenty of mystery, horror vampires in this story! Lots of blood as well. Great listen for any horror lover. No sparkly vampires here.

The ending left it open to possibility of more stories to come.

The narrator was a good fit. The story flowed well and was pleasant to listen to.

Overall 4 stars for me. I would listen/read more stories in the series if it continues.

A lot of fun

An entry into the PI urban fantasy landscape that brings a lot of fun to the genre. Sam Logan gets called to investigate a missing person which leads to a vampire infestation of a town that is quite startling to the characters. We have an established character who knows the goings on of this particular world and we get thrown into the mix with him right away. It is a fast-paced urban fantasy investigation book that doesn't skimp on the action. It is like a mix of Dresden, 30 days of night and some others in the genre and made for an entertaining listen.

Matthew Berry does a fantastic job narrating the book and thought he made everyone a fleshed out and distinct character. The quality of the production was solid and I enjoyed his pacing and delivery. Look forward to hearing more from Matthew Berry in the future.

An entertaining book with good narration that is a solid bet for fans of the genre.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Trail of Blood

If you had the choice of remaining as a human or living as an immortal, what would you choose? That seems like a loaded question, right?! Some would jump at the immortal bit without question, but others may ask what the consequences are. Would you have to kill other humans? Would you have to drink blood to survive? Do the things like stakes, garlic, and sunlight hurt you if you do decide to play favorites to the undead? Wands and Latch collaborated on one very detailed and graphic vampire mystery that will have readers on edge.

Sam Logan is an investigator and not just any investigator, he deals with the monsters that go bump in the night and that includes vampires. When he receives a call from a man who hasn’t been able to reach out to his son, he fears that the vampires may have already taken him. This leads Sam and his partner, Carter to investigate more into the town. Upon arrival, it appears to be almost a ghost town. Usually when an infestation gets this bad, they have to call in the authorities to wipe out the whole town, but Sam and Carter take it upon themselves to look for Joe’s missing son. What they discover is much bigger than they could have ever imagined and quite frankly, may be too dangerous to get out of alive.

Wands and Latch have an interesting view on vampires in this story, one that sticks to some of the vampire lore along with some original content as well. The character development could have been better, considering that there is really no back-story and characters are thrown into the mix so quickly, it may be easy for readers to feel lost or confused throughout the action. Since this review compliments the audiobook, Berry was a very noteworthy narrator. Almost all of the characters had vocal differentiation and he really seemed to get into the scenes with vigor. The pace is quite fast, but overall the story is entertaining. The narrator does not seem to have any issue with mispronunciation or grammatical quips; therefore, it is safe to assume that the story is well-written. If you are a reader of vampire mysteries and paranormal/occult investigations, you may want to pick this up for a quick read. After listening to this audiobook, it is our recommendation that an audience over the age of 18 is preferred due to language, violence, and sexual content.

A copy of this audiobook was provided to Turning Another Page by Audiobookworm Promotions and in no way affects the honesty of this review. We provide a four-star rating to Trail of Blood by Steve Wands & Keith Latch.

Well-rounded characters.

The story itself wasn't too far off from many other books in the genre - it reminded me a lot of a Patricia Briggs, JR Ward, or the Dresden Files. I liked how the supernatural was paired with the modern way of life. We have Sam Logan, who's a PI, that gets hired for a job in this small town. Come to find out, it's been over run by vampires. The story took a few twists and turns to solve the mystery, but kept me engaged throughout. It was very entertaining.

I really enjoyed the narrator, Matthew Berry, he was to the point, easy to listen to, but I had a hard time with some of his voice variations. Other than that, he did a wonderful job, and the production seemed very well done.

Fun horror

In Trail of Blood, Sam Logan and his partner Carter Mason take a job to find a missing boy and discover that the town has been taken over by vampires. It's a good thing they are happen to be vampire hunters as well as private investigators. I thought this was a fairly enjoyable vampire horror novel. It had a lot of action and fun characters. Sam and Carter are characters I would want to read about in another book. The only thing that I didn't enjoy about the book was I felt like the story was part of a series. I felt like I was missing something. I would have liked to know more about The Network and that wasn't explored enough for me. Still, the overall story was a way to spend an afternoon.

The audio production of the book was excellent. I also really enjoyed the narrator's voices. If you are looking to a fun vampire horror I recommend checking this one out.

*I received a copy of this audiobook from Audiobookworm Promotions

3.5* - good set up for sequels

No regrets listening to this audiobook. Note the length (5.5 hours) -- it's long enough to start getting to know some of the characters and build some texture into the story, but it's not long enough to complete the story arc or give us much of a backstory. As other reviewers have mentioned, the authors clearly set us up for additional stories by leaving multiple strings untied, but not in a disappointing way. The ending reminded me of a season finale of a television series in that respect. All of the characters were well written and believable and, as the description noted, the setting is reminiscent of 'The Lost Boys'. So, the main reason why I gave the story four stars instead of five was because it is clearly set up to be a series but the book cover doesn't mention that.

I give 3.5 stars for the narration. I was ambivalent about the narrator at the start of the book because his character voices didn't usually match what I envisioned for the characters. For example, as the story opens, one of the characters is a drunk who is slurring his words - except the narrator doesn't slur his words. He changed the voice for that character's dialogue, but didn't make him slur. It was a weird start to the narration. His regular speaking voice (other than character dialogue) was fine, although I did increase the playback speed to 1.5-1.75x to better suit my preference. (I'm thankful for the ability to increase the playback speed - the pace of narration definitely impacts my overall satisfaction of an audiobook!).

I'd be interested in reading/listening to more about these characters; they're a likable bunch with good chemistry...

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Basic action horror story done well

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was a fairly easy listen and I finished fairly quickly.

This book is set in the present time so I would class it as a urban fantasty with horror aspects. It takes a fairly modern view on the supernatural aspects (most people don't believe in Vampires). I thought the dual naration with one following mostly the group of monster hunters and the other following the newly turned teenager vampires was gave nice counterpoints and different points of interests.

The narrator (Matthew Berry) was very good and was very easy to listen to.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]