Book Review: Blood and Bullets by James R Tuck

Blood and Bullets
Author:  James R Tuck
Series:  Deacon Chalk: Occult Bounty-Hunter, book 1
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN-10: 0758271476
ISBN-13: 978-0758271471
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Deacon Chalk lost his family five years ago to the things that go bump in the night. Ever since he lost them he has hunted those things down, and been involved with the seedy underworld of the paranormal. Vampires, using a want-to-be-hunter named Larson, set a trap for Deacon. He manages to make it out of the trap, and goes on a quest to see who wants him dead.

This book delivers exactly what the title says. It is a pulp urban fantasy, that’s hero reminds me of almost any buff, bald action hero. This is a fact that Deacon himself seems to know. Most all of the women in the story, including the antagonist find him attractive, and he even includes why. He is clearly a badass, but goes too far out of his way to explain the reasons why. Arrogance Deacon has in spades, and there were plenty of parts in the novel I hoped it might get him into trouble. The big arrogant brut does have his soft spot, his dead family which trips him up, and makes him much more likeable as the story goes on.

The colorful cast of characters behind our hero is where it is at. This is a novel with a ton of magical critters, Vampires, Were-things, angels and even fairies are mentioned. Vampires in this book are evil, no exceptions, and the story even explains how vampires came into the world. They are not the sexy things in our romance novels, but sadistically evil. Deacon is helped fight the forces of evil with a priest, hunter-want-to-be, his sexy female assistant, a really awesome were-spider, and a character straight out of the bible. The side characters are well detailed, some more than others. I was mildly surprised by how much they let Deacon push them around.

The setting is not richly detailed. It is set mainly in Atlanta, but that seemed like a distant fact to the objects, like Deacon’s car. The settings are told well during a fight scene. It is generous with the buckets of blood, and good fighting, but that is where the settings goodness stops. There is grit, but it is in the fights, and felt lost any other time.

The book covers maybe four days in total, and the plot is very cut and dry. A big evil comes to take out Deacon, and he saves the day. There is a very thin romantic plot that seems like it might blossom into something more as the series goes on. I really enjoyed the mix of myth and storytelling that made up the back story of how certain things came to be.

I have said it before but this is an urban fantasy pulp novel to the fullest. Our hero is the classic ‘shoot’em first’ kind of guy. The problem is that there is not a lot to make it stand out of the crowd, other than the fact that the lead is not a detective or P.I. That doesn’t change the fact that the basic story has been seen before. The book has two things I enjoy, urban fantasy and grit, but it lacks in depth and detail.
My Rating: