Wellton County Hunters – Book Review

Wellton County Hunters by author Simon A Smith

Thank you to author Simon A Smith for providing me with a copy of his novel in exchange for this honest review.

Wellton County Hunters is the first book in the Search Team Trilogy. It’s a novella that promises to deliver a full story once the other two books are released.

The book starts with Russ cleaning his apartment and trying to cleanse his soul from a recent breakup. As he eases into a hot bath he hears a disturbance outside. He peeks out of the window just in time to see someone murdered right outside of his home.

Although he is clearly suffering from PTSD after this event he attempts to resume his day to day life. He has just started working at a bank, a job that he already can’t stand, and he just wants to get off of work to get high with his best friend Richie.

Through the motivation of small town boredom and existential ennui, Russ and Richie get involved in investigating the murder as well as helping an immigrant couple attempt to buy a home in the neighborhood.

Russ is the kind of person that just lets things happen around him. He doesn’t instigate much, but also doesn’t say no to ideas, good or bad. He’s a decent guy who lost his ambition and is attempting to regain it as he tries to not have a panic attack every time something reminds him of the murder.

During one of these small scale adventures Richie drags Russ to an obsolete video store. There, Russ sees a teenager wearing a jacket with the words “Wellton County Hunters” printed on the back. He finds himself inexplicably curious about this alleged team of hunters but when he asks the boy about it he says that no one has been able to explain it to him either.

A vague mystery is set in this book 1 and we’ll have to wait for book 2 to develop it further. I am intrigued enough to want to see where it goes. The characters are interesting and well developed. The dialogue is realistic and impressive, although I do think there are too many pop culture references that will unfortunately date this publication.

I do not know why the series is called the Search Team Trilogy, that has yet to be uncovered. Wellton County Hunters is only 200 pages long so I fail to see why it had to be a trilogy at all. Those of you who follow my reviews are likely very well aware of my increasing disdain for series that could have been singles. That’s just my opinion.

For anyone who is willing to break a story into 3 parts and wait in between I can recommend Wellton County Hunters. Perhaps the anticipation makes the story better. For some readers, that may very well be true.

4/5 small town houses 🏚🏚🏚🏚

If you like Wellton County Hunters you may also like Azalea Heights

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