Book Review: Nothing Left To Lose by Dan Wells

This image was taken from Amazon.com for review purposes under fair use doctrine.

Spolier Free Summary: Nothing Left To Lose by Dan Wells is a horror novel about a young man named John Cleaver. It’s the final book in the John Cleaver series. John has all the traits and desires necessary to be a serial killer. He simply chooses to be better. Lucky of him there are monsters in the world only he can hunt down. Unfortunately for him, his newest target has a reputation: “Run from Rain.” He’s alone. He’s being pursued by the FBI, and he’s facing the most feared creature on the planet.

Character:  John is one of the most compelling characters I’ve ever had the privilege to read about. I still feel strongly that the first three books were a more satisfying story as a whole, but the rest of the books were a fantastic extended look into someone you can’t stop listening too. If you enjoy deep characters with intense conflict, this is the series for you, and read the whole thing.

Exposition:  Wells doesn’t mess around too much with exposition. Even from a first-person narrative story, the information comes in a lot of ways. I said this is a horror novel, but it’s more of a twisted detective story. So yeah, there’s some exposition and pondering, but when the character talking is this wonderful, it’s hard to notice.

World building:  The biggest benefit to the continued series (a phrase I use to describe the other books in the series), is the world building. The first three books focus more on John and his conflict. The other book sin the series build on the method of the Withered. I was happy to get more information on this group, how they formed and how they work. The last three books answer all those questions and put a nice bow on the series as a whole.

Portrait of Mr. Wells was taken from his bio-page on his website.

Dialogue: This felt a tad heavy handed in this novel. These books have always been fairly cerebral, but I think there was more of this than I’d like. The reason for it is, like old Batman comics, John makes use of the other characters to explain his logic. It’s common is detective books, but it felt a little over the top for my taste.

Description: Easy to scan. Nice details. No chunks that slow me down. My kind of pace!

Overall: I didn’t want to put this book down. It drags the reader through an intense story. Yes, I’m still a bigger fan of the original three books, but this is a nice ending. It fits the tone and is probably a stronger theme than the third book. If you love gritty, monstrous detective stories, you’re missing out if you haven’t read this. Until further notice, this is the book I will compare others to when thinking of my top reads of 2018.

Thanks for reading,

Matt