This wasn’t the first time Maxwell McTavish and Erin Johansson tangled with monsters. While they were bumpin’ uglies on Paradise Island (not Themyscira), giant centipedes invaded their posh French Polynesian resort (read my review of Mega Freak: Bloody Paradise here). 

Now, six months later, the lovebirds were attempting to build a normal, no-monster existence in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, that proved impossible. The violent chaos of Paradise Island had awakened something within Max. Knowing monsters roamed the earth filled him with a sense of obligation that he couldn’t ignore. 

When his father, a high-ranking ex-Army vet, offered him a job with Sentinel Security Resolutions, Max jumped at the chance to become a professional monster killer. Initially, he hoped to keep his side hustle a secret from his girlfriend Erin. 

That didn’t last long, however. When a bunch of monsters escaped from a genetics laboratory in the Nevada desert, both Erin and Max were caught in the ensuing chaos. Max and his Sentinel Security colleagues battled a giant tarantula in the drainage tunnels beneath Las Vegas, while Erin had to wangle a 50-foot Gila monster on the Vegas Strip. 

Despite its enormous size, Max and his crew found a way to dispatch the mutant spider pretty quickly. Erin, on the other hand, was having major problems with Mr. Heloderma suspectum.

Dressed in full showgirl regalia, Erin was on a party bus cruising Las Vegas Boulevard when she spotted the immense lizard. Thundering down the street and digging trenches in the pavement, the beast moved at a tremendous speed. “Abandoned cars littered the roadway, some crushed like empty beer cans, others ripped in two,” said author Mike MacLean. “A battered SUV lay upside down on the walkway. Ruptured fuel tanks dripped gasoline. Blood and fuel mixed on the blacktop.”

Once the Gila monster spotted Erin, however, the creature’s mindless destruction ceased. Chasing her through various nightclubs, casinos and shopping malls, the giant Gila only had eyes for her. 

In MacLean’s first novel, I thought Erin was a bit like Princess Merida from the 2012 movie Brave. But I was wrong. Here in Mega Freak: Savage City, I realized she’s more like Poison Ivy, the flame-haired guitar player for the Cramps. 

Trapped in a casino gift shop, Erin—still dressed like a campy showgirl—shoulders an M4 Carbine rifle and rips apart the colossal lizard. “The sight of her in that skimpy, shimmery bikini blasting away with an assault rifle might’ve seemed comical if not for the rage in her eyes,” wrote MacLean. If you listen carefully, you’ll almost be able to hear the song “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns” playing in the distance. 

After two explosive novels, it appears that MacLean is fully invested in writing more adventures featuring Max and Erin, his monster-killing duo. That makes sense to me. As a writer for movies and comic books, he knows a thing or two about serial storytelling.

[ Mega Freak: Savage City / By Mike MacLean / First Printing: June 2026  / ISBN: 9781923663367 ]