Dead Mann Walking

Petrucha gets Hessius Mann, zombie PI, off to a promising start in this tale of murder and the undead. Mann was a police detective in the U.S. city of Fort Hammer until someone killed his wife and set him up to take the fall. After being executed for the murder, he’s belatedly exonerated and brought back from the dead as a well-preserved “chak” who can almost pass as a “liveblood.” Despite holes in his memory, Mann sets up shop as a gumshoe and is drawn into a complex serial killer case when he’s hired to locate a lower-functioning zombie who is heir to a large fortune. Petrucha successfully portrays the walking dead as more than mindless, flesh-eating killing machines, thanks to careful details of zombie life, culture, and slang. (Oct.)