Book review: Stalking the Beast by Howard Andrew Jones

The fifty-sixth book I read in 2016 was Stalking the Beast by Howard Andrew Jones.  Set in the world of Golarion, the setting of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, it's an adventure tale about a small holding in the River Kingdoms, a sort of lawless, up-for-grabs area of the world not unlike the early days of the American frontier, that is beset by a mysterious monster.  The local lord assembles a posse to track and kill it, just as a gunslinging bounty hunter arrives in town....

This is an exciting, if not especially unpredictable read.  The posse is whittled down one by one, as in any given action movie; the bounty hunter has, if not a heart of gold, scruples that leave the reader guessing which side she'll end up on.  If you have ever played Pathfinder, the supposed enigma of the mysterious beast is fairly obvious, leaving you only to wonder how long it's going to take the supposedly experienced protagonist to figure it out.