Damned If You Do

Death isn't all it's cracked up to be in Houghton's very British novel. In fact, Death is a haggard and disillusioned bureaucrat, who has long ago stopped pondering the chief's ultimate vision even as he goes about his grisly business: pushing a depressed woman off a building, setting army ants on innocent lovers and dismembering the passenger of a carnival ride in a bizarre accident. Along with his companions, War, Famine and Pestilence, the paper-pushing grim reaper rents office space in Oxford, England. The four employ a general assistant, the punky, ambitious Skirmish, but Death's personal assistant has just been eviscerated, so Death resurrects a deceased private detective to take his place. The novel is told from this unnamed zombie's point of view. As the zombie assists Death on his rounds, he has to get reacquainted with mobility, digestion and excretion. He's in rather good shape, actually, save for a missing penis and a particularly scrawny physique. Over the course of his week with Death, he copes with memories of his former life, many of them centering on Amy, the love of his life, who married someone else. Only after he became a private investigator did they meet again, when, coincidentally, Amy asked him to run an investigation on her abusive husband. In between dealing out plague-infected chocolates and looking up files, the zombie finally remembers the manner of his death. At the end of the week, Death discharges him, which usually means a return to corpsehood. But then the zombie challenges him to a game of chess. Houghton's dark riffs are amusing, but the novel's big extended joke gets a little tired before the end. (July)