Stake; Kevin J. Anderson

Title: Stake
Author: Kevin J. Anderson
Genre:Mystery; Thriller
Publication Date:July 31, 2020
Publisher: Severn House

Vampire hunter or serial killer? That depends on whether vampires exist . . .

Simon Helsing believes the only way to stop a bad guy with fangs is a good guy with a stake. He has devoted his life to ridding the world of vampires. He hunts them, finds their daytime lairs, and pounds a stake through their hearts.

Lexi Tarada wants to believe. She's desperate to prove that the strange and impossible can be real. She runs a website for the unexplained and tries to sift through the crazy conspiracy theories to find out what is – or might be – real.

Detective Todd Carrow is a skeptic. Haunted by visions of brutal killings from a previous case, he sees the latest gruesome murders as nothing more than the actions of a madman targeting innocents. Helsing is convinced he's doing good, but what if vampires aren't real and Carrow is right?

*Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for a honest and unbiased review*

Rating

Hello Fellow Readers,

The Interesting concept of this book is what drove me to read it. First of all Anderson made me ask a lot of questions during this book, the most prominent one being 'Do the Vampires actually exist?' This answer varied depending on whose POV you were reading at the time.

Helsing, the vampire hunter in question, had me wanting to believe they were real. The evidence was compelling. I did not want to believe he was some psycho serial killer. We then have Detective Carrow of course when I read his chapters I found myself second guessing Helsing, and his beliefs. Finally, we have Lexi who is caught in the middle, much like we the reader are. She wants to believe in the impossible but needs to stay skeptical and logical as well. Like Lexi, us readers need to know the truth. I won't discuss the fourth POV mostly because they are not mentioned in the synopsis, but I found them to be interesting as well.

What really made the book interesting was that I couldn't predict what was going to happen. This is like a breath of fresh air, during most mysteries I typically guess the murderer/the plot and it sort of let's the wind out of my sails. I also, really liked Anderson's writing, he made each character their own, plus the plot was driven and believeable (yes, despite it being a book about vampires). There were some boring parts, but this happens in books to set up the plot.

There were two things that bothered me, the first was that despite his great writing he repeated himself a lot. It almost made it seem as if he didn't trust the reader to remember what was said. The second was Lexi, there were moments I truly like her and felt a connection with her, other times I just wanted to shake her and ask her what the hell she's doing.

Overall a good book especially if you want a nice driven thriller.