Dust Devils Review

I’ve got to be honest here, Dust Devils is my first Jonathan Janz title. I have no basis of his other works to compare this to, but I can tell you for sure this won’t be the last. In fact, halfway through reading this I started buying more books from his back catalog. I’m late to the party, but now that I’m here I’m going to enjoy it. 

Dust Devils is a western/horror mashup. It’s a tale of one mans Loss, Humiliation, and quest for revenge. Cody Wilson is a man who has struck out on his own, leaving his father behind in order to make a life with him and his Wife, despite his father’s warnings. Needless to say, life doesn’t turn out so good for Wilson. The book starts in the thick of things, Wilson already having been betrayed and left behind, on a quest for revenge where he meets Willet Black, a young boy with the same intent. From here, Janz treats us to a gory vampire tale where you’re rooting for a main character who is for lack of better words, a bit pathetic. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but Cody is most definitely not a badass hero. For the type of book we’ve got here, that could have derailed it and made it completely unbelievable for our hero to be battling these demons, but Janz clearly has the skill to make it work. The characters are written well enough that you care about the ones you should, and loathe the ones deserving of your hatred. I feel like Jonathan Janz walked a tightrope here with this novel, it could have went off the tracks at any time, but he hit it out of the park, delivering a very fun, very different vampire tale. 

Dust Devils by Jonathan Janz is one hell of a fun book. It’s a western vampire tale that probably doesn’t have any right to be as good as it is. I don’t mean that in any kind of negative way, I mean that with the highest respect to the authors skills. From what I’ve read in reviews, much of Janz’s catalog is even better than this, and that makes me very excited for the books I’ve just ordered.