Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primordial | 2017 | David Wood | Buy |
| 2 | Overlord | 2018 | David Wood | Buy |
| 3 | Crocalypse | 2021 | David Wood | Buy |
The Sam Aston Investigations are creature-feature thrillers co-written by David Wood and Australian horror author Alan Baxter. Sam Aston is a cryptozoologist whose investigations keep putting him face-to-face with things that should not exist. Primordial kicks things off, Overlord raises the stakes, and Crocalypse sends Aston back to his Australian hometown to deal with something large and hungry loose in the rainforest.
These books combine Wood’s pacing and adventure instincts with Baxter’s experience writing horror and dark fiction. The result sits somewhere between Michael Crichton and a B-movie creature feature, leaning into the fun of the premise without forgetting to keep the tension high. Crocalypse puts Aston in a race against criminal gangs, environmental extremists, and mysterious mercenaries, all while a giant predator picks people off in the jungle. Baxter won an Australian Shadows Award for his solo horror fiction, and that background shows in the way these books handle their monsters.