The Dead Man Vol 1: Face of Evil, Ring of Knives, Hell in Heaven [Kindle Edition]

Lee Goldberg (Author), James Daniels (Author), William Rabkin (Author)

Book Description

Three stories of unspeakable evil make up The Dead Man Volume 1, an action adventure collection full of dark humor, surprising twists, and supernatural terror:

Matthew Cahill, dead and buried in an avalanche, wakes up in a morgue three months later in Face of Evil. But now he sees things no one else can and when his friend goes on a killing spree, he realizes the evil Mr. Dark has a plan for him.

In search of Mr. Dark, Matt finds himself in Heaven, Washington, a tiny hamlet in the Cascade Mountains embroiled in a four-family blood feud in Hell in Heaven. Only Matt can stop the bloodshed, but even he is going to have a hard time figuring out why Mr. Dark brought him here.

Matt believes a madman may hold the key to defeating Mr. Dark and his rotting touch. To find him, Matt must infiltrate a lunatic asylum in Ring of Knives—and his only chance of escaping alive is to face the unspeakable terror deep in the asylum’s woods.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I don't like horror novels. I don't much care for the fantasy genre. And buckets of gore put me off. So how come I read two of these books? I'll be honest with you: I was sort of trapped into it (don't ask). And what do you know, I loved them, notwithstanding the above. First of all, Goldberg and Rabkin are keen observers and fine writers. Exposition, dialogue, plotting, description . . . they're all first-rate: economical, coherent, and convincing. And Mathew Cahill is a genuinely intriguing character. And--to my surprise--darned if the books aren't funny. To put it in a nutshell, I simply couldn't put them down. No, really, I mean it. Literally. Once I started, I read each one through in a single night, which isn't usual for me. And now I'm hooked on the series. My God, what's happening to me?"--Aaron Elkins best selling author of The Worst Thing, Uneasy Relations, and The Dark Place

About the Author

Lee Goldberg earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from UCLA while working as a freelance journalist for such publications as American Film, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. He earned two Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. His television writing and producing credits include SeaQuest, Diagnosis Murder, and Monk. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his family.

William Rabkin is a two-time Edgar Award nominee who writes the Psych series of novels and is the author of Writing the Pilot. He has consulted for studios in Canada, Germany, and Spain on television series production and teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension. He is also an adjunct professor at the UC Riverside's low- residency master’s program.

James Daniels is a labor organization attorney who performed Shakespeare in London, received a Grammy nomination for his audio book narration, and wrote the hard-boiled noir mystery Ghost Bride. He and his family live in the Midwest.

Product Details

• File Size: 439 KB
• Print Length: 325 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1612182593
• Publisher: 47North (February 21, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005WWC5RM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,381 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #28 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Men's Adventure

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Women like pulp fiction, too! February 15, 2012

By Janice Sims VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I ordered The Dead Man volumes 1 & 2 because the synopsis stated that they were targeted to a male audience. Sure, the level of violence and the manner in which the intimate scenes are written might appeal to males, however women also like an exciting, fast-paced story! Actually, the stories (I've already read both volumes) reminded me of an old TV series: Kung Fu, in which a protagonist travels from town to town in search of someone. In The Dead Man series a really decent guy, Matt Cahill, dies in an avalanche. Three months later, he awakens and not only is he fine, but his body has improved. He now heals swiftly, and he suspects he no longer ages. Bonuses, right? Maybe not. Matt also now has the ability to see evil. When someone is about to commit an atrocious act, Matt sees them as rotting corpses. He actually sees the evil spreading in them. Plus, there is a supernatural being who calls himself Mr. Dark who goes around poisoning people with evil and inducing them to kill. Matt believes that unless he can vanquish Mr. Dark, the entire world will eventually be affected by his evil. As Matt tracks Mr. Dark across the USA he performs one heroic act after another. As someone who has read some of the best pulp fiction writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, I think this is a fine series and I look forward to other volumes.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars dead men sometimes do tell tales February 14, 2012

By H. Bala TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm glad it wasn't just me who was missing the likes of the Destroyer or the Death Merchant or even Peter David's short-lived Psiman series. The market dried up some time ago for action-packed men's adventures like those. But then e-books came along and Kindle and such, and so we're getting a bit of a revival of the short novel. Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin take rapid advantage with their gristly, spooky THE DEAD MAN series. THE DEAD MAN Vol. 1 collects the first three novellas.

I can't get enough of the strong pulp horror vibe that this series generates. Goldberg and Rabkin, who would soon recruit other writers to the cause, lace these stories with a nasty streak. The prose is spare and peppered with a wicked sense of humor. This is right up Joe Lansdale's alley, although I like to think there's also some of Robert E. Howard's influence at play here (and no, I don't mean the Conan stuff).

FACE OF EVIL acquaints us with simple logger Matt Cahill who is a petrified cadaver as the story opens. As a hero's introduction that's pretty hard to top. Three months after lying dead and frozen beneath an avalanche, Matt Cahill suddenly wakes up on the coroner's slab (this doesn't thrill the coroner). Matt finds it a tough go, returning to a semblance of his old life. He's regarded as a medical phenomenon. He's on YouTube (or his corpse is, anyway). He'd willed his property to his irresponsible best friend Andy. But the worse thing is that he can now see (and smell) the evil in people, evil manifested in the form of festering rot. Is this sudden ability a gift or a curse? Worse, when he came back from the dead, did he bring back a demonic passenger? Or has Mr. Dark always been there, pulling strings, coercing people into terrible acts of violence? FACE OF EVIL chronicles Matt Cahill's awakening to the malevolent supernatural world. Good thing he has his grandfather's axe. It'll have to carry him thru, that and the cherished memories of his dead wife. A man on a mission, he sets out to pursue the elusive Mr. Dark, whose mere touch inflicts evil on man.

RING OF KNIVES is written by James Daniels; he doesn't let up at all. The plot has Matt sneaking into a nightmarish sanitarium to consult a doctor who may hold the key to defeating Mr. Dark. Except that the doctor himself has become a mental patient and that the lunatics now run the asylum. RING OF KNIVES reads like a jolt of java, is hard-hitting like a sucker punch to the kidney. If you like weird supernatural horror, then this is it. If you prefer your violence to be on the gratuitous scale, then this is it. Matt lays down some serious buttkicking and, in the nearby woods, comes face to face with unspeakable horror. And to demonstrate that Mr. Dark isn't the only perverse bogeyman in Matt Cahill's universe, we soon run into the fiendish Rotting Jack. Only, I wasn't expecting that whiff of Grail mythology. For its brutal, non-stop action and menacing atmosphere, RING OF KNIVES is my favorite of the three entries.

Finally, in HELL IN HEAVEN, Matt rides into an odd little town named Heaven and finds it anything but. Heaven is inhabited by warring clans kept in check only by a monstrous presence they call the Lawgiver. But what happens when Matt slays the Lawgiver? More bloody work for Matt, is what.

You can't really say that THE DEAD MAN series lends itself to good character development. Matt Cahill is your archetypal hero and he's likable enough, but there are no distinguishing traits about him - other than his knack for sensing evil - to set him apart. These short books make up for that by being these intense, quick thrill reads. They're instant gratification and they even consistently provide a laugh or three. Hell, this review is probably longer than any DEAD MAN tale.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Dark Thriller Series in One Book February 16, 2012

By Shawn Kovacich VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This is a collection of three stories: Face of Evil, Ring of Knives, and Hell in Heaven. This book is the first three stories in The Dead Man series. They all are based around the character Matt Cahill.

Face of Evil - This is the beginning to Matt Cahill. He is a logger that tries to have a romantic interlude with a co-worker and gets trapped in an avalanche and killed. But that is just the beginning. Three months later Matt wakes up on a coroner's table. He heals rapidly, doesn't age, and can now sense the evil in others. But Matt senses Mr. Dark and decides to go on the hunt for Mr. Dark before he can spread the evil to others.

Ring of Knives - Matt is still fighting Mr. Dark. He gets a tip that an institutionalized man may have the key to defeating Mr. Dark. Matt gets into the asylum but after facing the horrors there, he may not get out. He has one chance, to fight the evil in the woods by the asylum. Mr. Dark is not the only one out spreading evil.

Hell in Heaven - Heaven is a little town that has some hellish clan wars going on in it. The only thing keeping the clans from killing each other is the Lawgiver. But evil takes many forms and Matt learns that his ax-welding skills are going to be severely tested.

I loved this book. All of the stories are short novellas of about 65 to 77 pages that you can purchase separately. But I have to say that I love how they are combined into this book. This is a great, fast paced series. I love Matt's character and all the horror that he faces. When you think it can't get any worse, it does. I can't wait to start reading volume 2 to see what happens next.