Review: Falls short of previous installments.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2012
I liked Ghost College.  I liked Ghost Soldier even more.  Naturally I was pleased to find that there was a third in the series created by two of my favorites, Scott Nicholson and JR Rain.Monty and Ellen are at it again.  This time they're off to Venice beach to celebrate their wedding anniversary.  After the last failed vacation of theirs in New Orleans (Ghost Soldier) they could use a little R&R.;  When they visit Ellen's old college professor at the art gallery he's preparing to finally open, they get more than what they bargained for. The gallery is haunted and what's been lurking around for the past six months, unsettling people and setting fires, isn't Casper the Friendly Ghost.Overall, the premise was good.  A haunted art gallery?  That's got cool written all over it.I'm sad to say that I was a bit disappointed.The story itself was ok--a ghost jockey, a horse spirit, a miffed chupacabra.  Some of it is a little off the reservation but for a paranormal series, things like that are normal.  I think it was a case of me not liking the author's style.This is the third different author to work on these two characters in this series and as a result, Monty and Ellen read differently than they did in the previous installments.  Honestly, I found the dialogue to be a little stiff and forced at times which only made me feel that the characters were, well, stuffy for lack of a better word.  Being that Monty is the point of view character, dialogue is the only way to relay Ellen and her professor's past and sometimes the exposition feels forced.  There were also a lot of repetition of words and phrases.  Things like 'paranormal investigations' and 'electronic paranormal investigation equipment' and 'seance barbeque' being used over and over and over again.  This may be seen as a nit pick on my part but it really starts to stick out after a while and takes me out of the story because I'm almost looking for it to be said again.This isn't meant to bash the author (I always say this when my reviews may be a little more on the critical side).  It's just my honest opinion trying to cite examples as to why I didn't like the book as much as I would have hoped.I like the series and the boiler plates for the characters (the scientific skeptic and the true believing medium with psychic powers) overall.  I also think it's VERY cool that Nicholson and Rain give other writers a stab at their creations.  This one just wasn't for me, however.