Conjesero

By: Carl Alves

Narrated by: Steve Rausch

San Francisco homicide detective Kevin Russell has arrested serial rapists, murderers, and more sadistic thugs than he could remember. Nothing he has ever accomplished can prepare him for Conjesero, a supernatural serial killer who has been terrorizing the Americas for centuries. Conjesero - a creature with extraordinary intelligence and a vicious nature that has created a trail of bodies from Mexico to San Francisco - has always made law enforcement cower in fear and pretend that he doesn't exist. Only Kevin is willing to stand in its path. His desperation takes him on a journey inside the killer's twisted world. There is nothing that he is unwilling to do, even if it means making a deal with the devil, to stop Conjesero or die trying.

©2015 Carl Alves (P)2017 Carl Alves

A well-paced monster thriller

Conjesero is about a homicide detective whose latest case involves a murderous monster of the non-human kind. Kevin is at the top of his career, having just caught a murdering rapist, when his friend is mauled by something he claims resembles a werewolf. This isn’t just some large man in need of a haircut and shave, says his friend, it was a genuine monster.

And he’s not lying.

This is a monster/police procedural thriller that has a high death count and a monster who isn’t afraid to kill children so be warned! It features a little something for everyone who likes these sorts of books and the writing reminds me a little of Dean Koontz, at least the version of Koontz who isn’t being preachy, speechy and long-winded! It moves at a fast clip, the characters are relatable and there’s even a little romance a-brewing.

Two things did leave me perplexed, however. One is the age of one of the kids. Unless I was hearing things wrong, which is entirely possible, there’s a boy in the story who is described as being in the third grade and going to an elementary school but he and his friends speak and behave more like kids in high school or, at the very least, middle school. Their plot line just didn’t jibe with the age and it niggled at me. The other perplexing moment comes near the last act when Kevin decides to enlist the help of untrained civilians (one of them is his love interest, FFS!) to assist in catching this supernatural bad guy instead of putting together some armed SWAT team or something. It was a really dumb turn of events for such an accomplished detective and even I couldn’t suspend my disbelief that far to go along with his hapless plan.

I listened to this as an unabridged audiobook and recommend doing it that way if you enjoy audiobooks. Steve Rausch has a commanding voice and does a very good job voicing Kevin and the men though, I cannot lie, he is a little cringy when it comes to the women and children but that’s usually the case when there’s one narrator and he has to voice varied characters that aren’t in his range. He keeps a good pace and kept me tuned in which is more than many narrations tend to do.

I’ll give it a 3 ½ but will bump up to a four because, darn Audible, why no ½ stars?