I’m shameless, I know, but here’s another plug for a plug, a review of Dead America from Hellnotes, a great site dedicated to reviews of horror fiction, books and films.

Sheila Merritt writes of Dead America:

“It is wise in its societal perceptions, and knowledgeable about the conventions of hardboiled fiction. At one point the detective states: “Just what the world needs — another depressed zombie.” A book that pokes fun at itself for being part of a pop culture mania deserves a smile and a wry embrace.”

Sheila’s hit the dead nail on its dead head – one thing I was going for with Dead America was the sense that, through the character of Faraday, the reader was being let in on a joke, possibly the biggest joke in history (or at least the history of the novel).  Faraday exists in a world where the dead come back to the same, boring old life they died in – the afterlife becomes the punchline to life, the greatest joke of all.

I also liked Sheila’s genre-classification (something I have trouble doing with my own work): she calls Dead America a ‘necro noir novel’.  Hmm, think she might be onto something there…

Thanks Sheila and thanks Hellnotes.

You can check out the full review here…