Jazz remains compelling, sympathetic and a little scary. Know going in that it’s written for high school aged kids (and adults, of course) with some experience with horror stories. Lyga does not talk down to his YA audience, but these books are not for young teens or the squeamish. Jazz is put to work again using his unwanted set of skills to track down a serial killer. He continues that struggle here, but without Howie and Connie by his side (they have their own battles to fight back home) it’s even harder for Jazz to remember that he does not have to be his father’s son. Billy Dent is a truly nasty piece of work and understanding him, being able to relate to him and his ilk, and the fear of becoming like him mess with Jazz incessantly. It is a little far-fetched to imagine any police officer calling on him to actually assist with a case, but this is fiction and the characters are so good that I was able to roll with the somewhat outlandish premise of the story.Īnyway, Jazz is helping investigate a series of brutal killings and his father is still playing with his head, despite having been arrested 4 years previous. Jazz understands serial killers and he’s good at catching them – he proved that in the last book. That seems odd for a 17-year-old with no training, but not everyone is the son of Billy Dent – the son who Dent thought would be his protégé, the son to whom he revealed all his tricks, passed on all his wisdom, groomed to be his successor. This time around, Jazz is summoned to New York to help with a murder investigation.

In Game, all three main characters are back, as well as Jazz’s murderous father, Billy Dent. Perfect set up for a series, and I was excited to see that there was a sequel. He placed them in a story that allowed them to develop, reveal Jazz’s past and let us imagine the horror of being raised by a maniac.

He set up a terrific cast of characters in that book – Jazz, the son of an infamous serial killer, his best friend Howie, a brittle hemophiliac, and straight shooting girlfriend, Connie.

Game is the sequel to Lyga’s excellent YA horror novel I Hunt Killers. Oh, Barry Lyga, I thought I knew you better than that. That’s right he ends a book with a cliffhanger. You think you can trust him, you let your guard down, you let yourself dream of a future of satisfying horror stories and then, out of the blue, he does something terrible. Just when you think you know what you can expect from a man he throws you a curve ball.

Game i hunt killers 2