Dead Mann Walking: A Hessius Mann Novel

ISBN: 0451464214

Author: Petrucha, Stefan

Condition: Used

Review "Fast-paced zombie-noir with a melancholy bite. A sure antidote for the blandness of traditional zombie fare." - David Wellington, author, Monster Island: A Zombie Novel"Petrucha successfully portrays the walking dead as more than mindless, flesh-eating killing machines, thanks to careful details of zombie life, culture and slang." - Publisher's Weekly"Hessius Mann is up there in my top ten list of favorite PIs,zombie or not." - 5/5 hats, My Bookish Ways"With plenty of danger, intrigue, and drama, this zombie thriller is pure excitement from beginning to end." - The SciFi Chick Product Description After Hessius Mann was convicted of his wife's murder, suppressed evidence came to light and the verdict was overturned-too bad he was already executed. But thanks to the miracles of modern science Hessius was brought back to life. Sort of. Now that he's joined the ranks of Fort Hammer's pulse-challenged population, Hessius attempts to make a "living" as a private investigator. But when a missing persons case leads to a few zombies cut to pieces, Hessius starts thinking that someone's giving him the run-around-and it's not like he's in any condition to make a quick getaway... About the Author A lifetime fan of comic books, science fiction, and horror, Stefan Petrucha developed a love for all sorts of literary work in high school and college, eventually learning that the very best fiction always brings you back to reality, so really, there's no way out. At times he has been a tech writer, an educational writer, a public relations writer and an editor for trade journals, but fiction has always been his passion. He has written several graphic novels for the X-Files, Tales from the Crypt and Nancy Drew series and has also published numerous young-adult novels in the science fiction and horror genres, including Paranormal State, a companion book to the hit A&E television show of the same name. Stefan lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and daughters. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1Sixteen pieces.That's how many chunks the newslady said Colin Wilson was cut into. He was scattered across the desert like bits of burger wrapping and leftover fries. The cops found all the bits. Except the head. That's unusual, seeing as how the police don't tend to get involved with Wilson's type, no matter how many pieces they're in.Of course, the news didn't play it like a murder. To the livebloods, it's more about litter. Lousy so-and-sos always leaving their body parts around, making the living waste their time picking up after them. The candy-blond anchor shrugged. Must've been an accident. Wilson's type are always getting into accidents. Cut to deodorant commercial. At times like this, you want to smellnice.Accident, my ass. One or two pieces, maybe, and they would have found the head. Seeing as how there's no middle ground between accident and design, that meant something weirder; he was cut up on purpose. That's a lot of work. First, you have to get Colin Wilson into a position where he can't disagree, and then you have to do all that cutting. Human bone, too. Probably needed special tools. It's sure as hell not the kind of thing you do on a whim, or even out of anger. The reasons would have to run dark and deep.And then there was the head.I tried not to think about it, to focus on something else, but I didn't have a lot going on. I stared at my desktop, the stains looking like a faded Jackson Pollock. I tried to make animal shapes out of the Goodwill shirts piled on the floor, or see a tree in the cracks on the door.By the time the news came back on, a late-afternoon light, the dying kind, had intruded from the broken window, making the TV hard to see. It didn't help. I couldn't get Colin Wilson's head out of mine; images of it were crawling around my brain like freshly hatched baby spiders. I didn't know Wilson from a punched hole in the wall, but I kept seeing his severed