A New Year, a New Debut Review: THE WATCH

THE WATCH, by Tyner Gillies
3.75 Silver Wine Goblets                                        

What do you get when you mix a hard-ass Canadian Mountie with a prescient witch and a basement-dwelling demon? Tyner Gillies's gripping first novel, THE WATCH.

Tyner Gillies's debut strikes hard and fast, sucking the reader in from the first adrenaline-pumping page right through to the "can't look" ending. A blend of Michael Connelly gritty police-procedural-realism and Jim Butcher wise-ass other-worldism it features Constable Quinn Sullivan, a "veteran" RCMP officer recently relocated to Resolution Cove, a supposed quiet town perched on British Columbia's scenic west coast. But a series of violent crimes perpetrated by reputed "nice guys" sets the town on its ear, and Constable Sullivan on the hunt for answers. Enter Autumn Donnelly.

Autumn believes in things Sullivan is convinced live only in fairy-tales, and other fiction. So he dismisses her, and her odd suggestions. That is, until he is attacked and nearly killed by a formerly mild-mannered drug user wielding inhuman strength, and one of his comrades-in-arms attempts suicide. Unwilling to believe his co-worker mentally unstable, and no longer able to deny the similarities linking Resolution Cove's unprecedented—and bizarre—crime spree, or the muttering about "eyes in the dark" by those wreaking mayhem, Sullivan seeks out Autumn, and learns his destiny.

He is a Guardian—and the only one qualified to save Resolution Cove. But first, he has to believe. In magic. In demons.

In himself.

***

Tyner Gillies knows of what he writes; police procedure, jargon, relationships, and emotions all ring true. His characters are well-written, real, the action intense. The supernatural elements, one can only hope, manifest only in his imagination.

The Watch is Tyner Gillies's first published novel. He is hard at work on another. To learn more about him and to order his book, go here. Now.

 Deborah