Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were a reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

To try and move things along I’m going to try to post another one tomorrow and possibly one on Saturday. Actually, I may do this every Saturday with the next book because I have a lot of books to go through. Besides, I don’t read often enough. Then again, I want to read for fun and not as a chore, so we’ll see what happens there.

Ed Gorman has worked with a number of properties and genres, from Zorro to noir to sci-fi to mysteries to thrillers. Richard Dean Starr had a story in the previous volume as well as other properties like Hellboy, the Green Hornet, Zorro, and other others. He is also one of the founders of ebooks.com, a coming soon ebook distributor. What kind of story will they make together?

Justice Delayed

by Ed Gorman and Richard Dean Starr

This is the most modern tale yet. The Phantom uses a laptop in one scene as well as a lot of eavesdropping devices. It also has Diana and mentions of the kids. Plus a reference to Dean Koontz, whose novel series Gorman has taken part in. The story has Diana meeting a woman on a plane and hearing about corrupt judge Sloane, a racist who is trying to stir up a race war in his city with the help of crooked cops. It’s a good story idea and it works well.

The only flaw is the writing style, and it may just be personal taste. Most of the time the story is told in present tense rather than the usual past tense. In the first scene when people talk it’s in past tense, but present the rest of the time. This, plus a few typos is something editorial should have looked at, but the present tense is intended. It also makes the beginning part of the story feel clunky during scene transitions until the Phantom begins his work. It’s not something I’m used to as a reader and it makes it a little harder to be drawn in, although near the end I was…sadly at the level I usually start a story at.

If you can get past that, it’s still a pretty good story. If you have the book anyway it’s worth reading.

Next Time: “Devil At My Side” by Joe Gentile with Rafael Mieves

Related articles

• Chapter By Chapter: The Phantom Chronicles V2 – “The Leopard’s Eye”
• Chapter By Chapter> The Phantom Chronicles V2: Night Visitor To Bangalla
• Chapter By Chapter: The Phantom Chronicles V2 – I Of The Storm
• Chapter By Chapter: The Phantom Chronicles V2 – A Man of His Word