In ‘Dead America’ Luke Keioskie gives us a unique take on the undead genre wrapped in a noir murder mystery package. I don’t often say it but I used to be a huge fan of murder mysteries. I probably read a few hundred of them when I was in college so the fact that I had a chance to read one while I was also able to write about zombies? Yes, ecstatic doesn’t even begin to explain. The high hopes though didn’t come without worry. Firstly it can be difficult to craft a well written murder mystery. Secondly this is a case of a book that has intelligent zombies in it which is always something I’m not a huge fan of.
In one night the world changed. People died but they didn’t stay dead. We’re not talking about coming back as soulless monsters bent on eating the flesh and intestines on the living. These are the same people that were once living but now are corpses that are slowly rotting from the inside out. Talk about putting a damper on the love life. New industries clearly sprouted to accommodate the newly dead though even with people able to stay ‘alive’ it didn’t work out well for everyone. Homicide detectives were pretty much out of a job and as the victims could now clearly say what had happened to them.
That’s where we step in with a private investigator named Faraday. He used to be a detective and when he overstepped the line he went from investigating for the police to investigating freelance. These days instead of chasing killers he was chasing down cheating spouses, runaways and the like. Easy money for someone who knew their work. Easy but unfulfilling.
We open with Faraday looking into just one of these cases. Hired by a rich father to track down his little girl should be an easy case. It stops being easy when the girl turns up dead. Not undead but the first recorded actual death since no one stayed dead.
Who was the killer? How was the daughter actually killed? These were the questions Faraday now has to answer as we follow him through a world of crime, big business, sex, death, and undeath.
We’re not going to see a lot of over the top description of gore on this one as these aren’t your classic zombies at all. You will get some wrecked bodies and fighting when the undead involved gets a lot more interesting since it would appear body parts can be swapped out when damaged with surgery. Lose an arm? No problem we can get you another one if you have the money! As I mentioned earlier there are a whole slew of new ways to make money in a world where people don’t die and you get a healthy subtle hint at them.
This is the first novel I’ve picked up by Luke and while he has a few out it appears to be his only one that involves the undead. I’m going to tell you right now I think that’s a shame and hope he has a future tale of zombies come up in the future as it was a fantastic read.
Available on Amazon.
