Drago Descending

Reviewed: September 17, 2004
By: Greg F. Gifune
Publisher: The Fictionworks
171 pages in e-book format, $4.95

David Drago is a private investigator with a bit of a drinking problem and an ex-girlfriend problem. Jesse Greenlaw might not be such a problem if he was not still in love with her, but he is, so it's awkward when her fiancee turns up asking him to find her. According to Mr. Abdiel she's disappeared. He can't think why and is worried that she's been abducted. Jesse's a frustrated actress who has moved into a career in low budget porn films since she left David. Abdiel's been trying to wean her away from it, he says, and he's afraid someone didn't like that.

Against his better judgment, partly because Abdiel waves a lot of money around,, and partly because it's Jesse, who was his childhood sweetheart, Drago takes the case. After that moody opening things become progressively weirder, developing into the sort of case that would have been right at home at Angel Investigations, complete with strange dreams and hints of the occult.

Drago Descending was a quick read. It wasn't a bad book, but it could have been either shorter or longer, and that may be the source of my dissatisfaction with it. A longer book could have eased into the bizarre side of the story more slowly and given us more of the background that would lay the groundwork for the ending.

Now the ending would be right at home in anyone of several occult based television shows that have seen a season and then disappeared over the last few years. I'm thinking of series like “Brimstone” and “The Collector”, although the kind of twist that's used here would also work on those stalwarts “The Twilight Zone” or “The Outer Limits”.

Again - not a bad book. I enjoyed it, but I don't see it staying in my permanent collection.

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