The first in The Inspector Dalton Files, this book builds on the character development that took place in the Evaran series. In that series, we learned that Dalton is a refugee from an earth destroyed by nuclear war. With Evaran’s unknown help, he managed to escape to an Earth in an alternate universe where he developed skills as a justice inspector with an embedded AI and high-tech investigative tools. Dalton ultimately opposed that world’s law enforcement leadership due to the injustices he saw. Fleeing again, he ended up, near death, in another unfriendly alternate universe earth from which Evaran saved him. After giving Dalton additional investigative enhancements, Evaran helped him settle into Emily’s and Doctor Snowden’s earth in the year 2013. Snowden’s earth is inhabited by nonhumans and humans. Most humans are unaware of the nonhumans, others accept them, and others still are hostel to them.

Dalton is now the chief inspector for Earth Ward, a group of non-humans ruled by ancient vampires. The purpose of the group is to protect the human population against non-humans who may take advantage of them or harm them.

In “Otherworld: Book 1 of The Inspector Dalton Files” Dalton has to take on creatures in a hell world on the other side of a dimensional portal who are traveling across the portal to earth to attack humans and members of two local nonhuman sectors. Dalton has always worked alone in the past but in this book, he puts together a small team of humans and nonhumans who, I suspect, will be with him in the future books of this series.

Of Adair Hart’s Sci-Fi series, I still like the Evaran series best. With only the first book to go on, I think the Dalton books will be a good series as well. We’ll see how it develops now that he has an investigative team put together. The Adair Hart series that I didn’t care for is his Earthborn series. To me, that series seemed bent on violence, not justice as in the Evaran and Dalton series. ( )