I originally picked out Chris Holm’s “Dead Harvest” because of the cover, finding it while searching out cool vintage book covers.  Self-publishing a few short stories through Kindle and Nook means you have to make your own covers, and there’s something eternally cool about the old paperback covers.

So how did picking a book by its cover work out for me?  I’d say pretty well.

The last twenty pages of “Dead Harvest” totally makes this book.  The first hundred are great too.  The ones in-between?  Well, they’re decent.  They keep you going, I’ll give you that.

Those pages keep Sam and Kate stumbling, running, and trying to figure things out, stealing bodies, stealing cars, stealing—sorry, hijacking—helicopters all while dodging demons, angels and the majority of the New York City police department.  While some of it seems unnecessary or excessive (the helicopter), I never hit the point I wanted to put it down, probably due to the back-story of Sam Thornton, the Collector, as we find out a little more, not only his own back-story rooted in the 1940s and why he’s damned to an eternity of collecting souls, but also on the mythology that runs throughout the story of demons, angels, and possession.

It’s Sam’s personal back-story and the relationship between man, demon and angel that all comes together at the end, in those last few pages, and adds a little twist to a story that was starting to feel a little sluggish.  Could this book have stood to lose a few pages?  Maybe a hundred?  Sure.

Am I going to continue reading Chris Holm’s ‘the Collector’ series?  Absolutely.  And not just because of the covers.

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