Alligator Season: A Faction Story (The Redacted Files) by Tyler Hanson is an edge of your seat novella. It follows Catalina, a monster hunter, as she tries to find and eliminate the monster terrorizing a small village. The monsters in this story are based on real animals though they do have characteristics that kick the thrill level up a few notches. I personally found them all the more terrifying because of how they challenged my preconceived notations of the animal they were based off.
The action in this story is intense and jam packed from start to finish. There was just enough down moments to break up the action and add some characterization while keeping me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next attack. The way the fight scenes were described made it feel like I was watching it all play out like a movie instead of reading a book.
The real highlight of the story has to be Catalina herself, she is smart, sassy, and a total badass. I loved her don’t give a damn attitude throughout the story and her inner commentary had me cheering her along through the whole story.
The one criticism I have is that I wished a little more time had been given to explaining Catalina’s Gaze, which was mentioned several times in the opening scene and then again at the climax of the story without any kind of details as to what it was. This would have upped the supernatural feelings of the story a little more. Not having this information did not hinder my enjoyment of the story at all, it just left me wanting to know more about the characters and the world created in the story. Which I guess was the point, as I found out after reading that Alligator Season is teaser for a series of books. The first of which Personnel: Dosier Feldgrau (The Faction Book 1) was published just this week. I can’t wait to pick up my copy to find out more about Catalina and her world.
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