Salaset Reviews | Swing Shift - William D Arand

There will always be a soft spot in my heart for Super Sales on Super Heroes. It was one of the books that was first able to draw me in on characters alone and get me super attached to them and their growth. The main character was understandable, relatable, and frankly a fantastic representation of a true “everyman”.

That being said, I have a new favorite in the Otherlife Universe.

Swing Shift has captured my heart completely in regards to all of William Arand’s work (that I’ve read so far). The characters are the most relatable, the most grounded, and the most real I’ve ever read, and this is in a story with a hidden otherworld full of paranormal people like elves, trolls, and liches.

The book follows Gus, a detective with the Paranormal Investigative Department (PID) and his story to uncover a conspiracy that is affecting the paranormal world and the mundane world. Before I get deep into my honest review, here is the blurb from Arand himself.

Cover of Swing Shift Book 1 | William D. Arand

Gus’s life was a tedium and boredom he’d grown comfortable with. One that he sought out after he’d come back from his tour of duty.

A Detective in the Paranormal Investigations Department. A job he could work day in and day out in relative peace. One cold and forgotten cup of coffee at a time.

It was an environment that made some sense to him. At least in comparison to civilian life where almost nothing did. On top of that, it gave him a chance to hide what he was from the rest of the world.

An apex predator that made the entirety of the Paranormal world fear him. His very species was often killed as soon as they were found out.

By government and citizen alike

He’s a Boogieman.

A name that made humans laugh, and vampires curse. It was a strange life to be sure.

Now though, Gus’s stable non-life is about to be kicked over. Whether he likes it or not, he’s about to be handed a case that’s going to mess up his already screwed up life.

Without getting too far into spoilers, you fall in love with Gus right away. Of everyone in the Otherlife multiverse so far, Gus is the one who seems to be the most genuinely good of all of them, despite him being a predator who feeds off the fear of others, a true monster who craves hunting and killing humans and beasts alike.

Gus is introduced to us in a situation that most of us can understand; sitting at his desk and forgetting about his coffee and desperate for a lunch break. He goes outside toward the hospital and sits across the road, taking in the fear of the place.

Just like in the blurb, Gus is a boogieman. He literally gets nourishment from the fear of others, and hospitals are full of it so it’s not like there’s a problem.

Gus is the kind of person who hands his trash can to the cleaning lady to help her out, to notice a young tree struggling and put up support sticks to help it grow, to let a kid off with a warning to avoid screwing up their entire future.

This book series unequivocally gets a 9.5/10. I’ll explain why it doesn’t get the last 0.5 in the next section.

Spoilers ahead.

Gus has a past. I mean, what good hero doesn’t. Gus was a soldier over in what is essentially Afghanistan, and he was caught between a bloody battle between two elven clans. It’s hinted that the real reason for the war out there was because of the battle, but Gus didn’t know that, nor did any of his squad.

To protect his squad, Gus embraced his inner boogieman, hunting down and killing the elves who had butchered his squad, the ones who had turned a group of thirty to a group of three. It was because of the atrocities that Gus did, the war crimes he committed, that he, his best friend Mark, and their friend Olsen got out.

But like what happens all to often in our own world, Olsen committed suicide not long after getting back stateside.

Gus is plagued with PTSD from this event, from being the monster and killing elves in cold blood, and from watching his friends die, one by one.

That PTSD is also what helps Gus become more relatable. It doesn’t take center stage like many other depictions, but it is a massive part of how he is, and how he is able to relate to others.

Now that that part is out of the way, I can get to more of the actual story. All that above takes place before the book even starts.

Gus literally runs into another detective, Vanessa Torres, while out on his “lunch”. Vanessa is a normal cop and has no idea about the para-world. As Gus is talking with her, he gets a radio notification of a unique case where a troll has gone berserk and his ‘mask’ breaks, exposing him to the mundane world. He jumps into his car and Vanessa follows, being a cop and wanting to help. Gus doesn’t have time to argue, so he takes her with him.

Plot happens, and Vanessa ends up helping him with his case while they wait for her mind to be wiped by a registered psycher. During this time, they are assigned the case of figuring out why the troll went berserk when he was otherwise a normal member of society.

During their investigation, they meet Melody, a powerful contractor (Essentially a magician) who takes an interest and joins them in their journey.

Now, it wouldn’t be a William Arand book without a harem, but hilariously it isn’t the main character who gets the harem. It is strongly indicated that the one with the harem is Melody, which makes more and more sense as you read the book. It also wonderfully links back to Super Sales in such a way that I audibly shouted out “I found you, you son of a bitch!” at work which may have caused some concern to my coworkers.

I don’t want to spoil it too much, but there are some reveals in this book that are so satisfying if you have read Super Sales in its entirety.

My only issue is that it drifted away from the more grounded nuance in book three and more toward the Otherlife universe. Now, I know that it is a part of that which I am okay with, however it shifted a bit too hard toward that instead of a smooth guide into it like what Felix or even Rene had. It changed very abruptly from a detective story to a story with gods and angels and the Silent One without much room to recover from the whiplash. Thankfully though, even Gus is affected by this though, openly acknowledging that he is way out of his depth. Once it starts affecting him in ways that it cause problems for him, he and his wives get out.

That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have one bitchin finale.

This is an amazing trilogy, and one that has became my favorite and go to suggestion for new books. Super Sales will always hold a place in my heart, but Swing Shift has taken the crown and I don’t expect it to be taken any time soon.