The story begins very promising: a story about a man who, after being murdered, makes a deal with a demon to return into the living world for revenge. We follow the Hangman on his killing spree and get a glimpse of the police puzzling over his gruesome legacy. While anticipating a straight suspenseful horror-thriller with a creepy main character, the plot unexpectedly takes a turn and the Hangman is thrown into the middle of the age-old war of good against evil, including a grumpy angel, vampires and vampire hunters.

Suddenly, the story jumps into the past revealing some background and introducing a number of vampires and vampire hunters who take turns killing each other. However, all these plots are connected too loosely. New characters are thrown in just to be killed at the end of each chapter and I wondered about their significance for the main plot. Suddenly, vampires and vampire hunters become the main focus of the story, while the Hangman retreats to a pitiful sidekick position.

At the beginning we learn about a set of magic rings, whereof the Hangman holds one in his possession. While I would have appreciated more information about their origin, the following flashback chapters suddenly focus on a magic sword serving the generations of vampire hunters. My impression was that the author couldn't decide between telling a horror story about an avenging demon and a story about a vampire war, so he decided to mix both into one.
Unfortunately, there is no seamless transition between chapters, which stand on their own instead of meshing into a smooth plot. While each scene may have some entertainment value of its own, their sequence does not make a satisfying story.

The author sure knows how to vividly describe an entertaining fighting scene, but the dialogues, which also play a great part in the presentation of characters, are very simple in contrast. Also, I noticed some remaining typing errors, which while not distracting the reading flow could be easily erased by another round of proof reading.

In the end, I didn't care much about any of the characters or whether they survived (yet another) battle. While there are several entertaining chapters, especially the first ones, and also some fascinating ideas, the book as a whole did not work for me.

(I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review) ( )