Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell

Femmes fatales, double-crosses, and blood-spattered action characterize this hard-boiled homage to zombie fiction. Detective Vitus Adamson was turned into a zombie by his brother, and subsequently killed and ate his son and wife%E2%80%94or so his brother tells him. Escaping into his work, Vitus agrees to find a couple's missing son, Owen, and stumbles into a maelstrom of self-doubt, sacrifice, and conspiracy with him at its chewy center%E2%80%94because Owen resembles Vitus's son. After meeting Madame Astra, cult leader of the Lord of the Flesh-Eaters, Vitus is torn between guilt and love, and between false memories and foreshadowed tragedy. With a smoking gun and ravenous appetite, he struggles to rescue a victimized child amid a cataclysm of flesh and fanaticism. In this terrifying moral battleground, the dead are superior to the "black-suited men with dead eyes" orchestrating human affairs. Rose's debut achieves a unique, hard-edged voice strengthened by clipped prose. Horrifying action mingles with self-referential humor and bad attitude, and the explosive suspense mirrors emotionally intense conflicts. Fans of zombies and PIs will find Vitus's story gripping. (Oct.)