Dead America: A Zombie Novel [Paperback]

Luke Keioskie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2009

Life's tough in America. Especially when you're dead. Faraday thought finding a runaway girl would be easy money. But when the girl turns up dead - the first American in decades who hasn't relived as a zombie - Faraday must hit the streets to find her killer. Standing in his way are undead gangbangers, a police force rife with bigotry and lifism, and the zombie crime lord of Harlem. But with the help of a necrophilic pathologist, a severed head named Dorothy, and a reporter that would literally give her right arm for a story, Faraday must discover why the dead girl didn't come back to life. And he better be quick before the animosity between the living and the dead sparks a riot that could burn New York City to the ground. In a country where the afterlife is the same as life before death, can anyone really live at all? Welcome to Dead America. Land of the dead and home of the grave.

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Severed Press; First Edition edition (August 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980606527
• ISBN-13: 978-0980606522
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,145,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Luke Keioskie has been a professional writer since the millenium turned and the world didn't end. A sometime lecturer and researcher in Creative Writing, he's currently a web editor by day and a novelist by night. He has a Doctor of Creative Arts and spends far too much time at the beach.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for all zombie fans, August 21, 2009

By 

Rom - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dead America: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

A completely original and enjoyable take on the zombie genre. A zombie murder mystery set in a world where the living and the undead coexist. A world where necrophilia is an acceptable sexual preference and embalming is a cosmetic procedure. A P.I is on the hunt for a killer. The victim is the first person not to reanimate in decades, and the police are baffled. Crimes were usually solved by asking the victim what happened to them after they reanimated. If this was a movie it would star Humphrey Bogart and be directed by Romero.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best zombie book of the decade, September 14, 2009

By 

Graham Storrs "TimeSplash - available now fro... (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead America: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

I'm not a big fan of zombie stories, or of horror, but the sheer originality and cleverness of this book had me hooked from the start. The story is a Chandleresque murder mystery, fast-paced, witty, and with all the ingredients that will make noir fans lap it up. But this is a darker shade of noir than usual. The story is set in a world where people just won't stay dead any more. They 'relive'. They don't eat brains, they don't stagger about like, well, zombies, they just wake up and get on with things as dead people. It's a world where the living are worried that the low-paid dead are serving fries at Macdonalds, while the dead are pressing the government for equal rights with the living. It's a world with plenty of opportunities for dark humour, opportunities Keioskie never fails to exploit. Dead America is a great read; fast, fascinating, and fun.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It'll eat at your brain, September 2, 2009

By 

Demarracts "reader not a fighter" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead America: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

These aren't your normal zombies. These ones carry the same emotional baggage as the living and that in a nutshell is the most frightening aspect of this novel. It's a rollercoaster of a book, with a sarcastic 'everyman' main character who leads us through the horrors of the new world that humanity has found themselves in. It reads almost like one of those procedural TV shows like CSI or Criminal Minds but with the added zombie aspect, which doesn't really detract from the punch of the terrible things people can do to each other. The writer has been very clever to slowly install a sense of normality to the zombie world without hitting the reader over the head with all the social changes that would come. What affect zombies would have on the religious world now that there is documented life after death is an interesting aspect that is probably worth a book all on its own (sequel please). It is just crying out for a movie (you listening Spielberg), though I don't think Bogart would be a good Faraday. I see him more like Bruce Willis from 16 Blocks or Last Boy Scout with Steve Buscemi being the necrophilic pathologist Conroy.