You would think that crawling your way out of Hell would be the worst that could happen. You would be wrong. Six months has passed since Stark sent his nemesis to Hell, it wasn’t exactly the death that he had been planning and considering Hell was ripe for revolution Stark worries that he may have made Mason stronger. Still there is money to be made if you’re going to keep a rundown video rental store going and your pet head in a cupboard fed and happy. Stark uses what he knows best, as one of Hell's best hit men he touts his skills to both the Government, who have a tame Angel on their side, and to anyone else with money. Lucifer sends him a stipend, it’s not a great amount and Stark has a nasty feeling he only does it because he is his father. Things couldn’t get any worse, well they could and they do when L.A. gets invaded by zombies...

Kill the Dead (434 pages) is the follow up novel to Sandman Slim, written by Richard Kadrey. I didn’t think that, given the elements in the first book, that Kadrey could improve on the formula; this book shows just how wrong you can be.

For fans of the series Stark is the same wretchedly unhappy individual we met in the first novel, he takes being melancholically depressed to new heights as his life takes yet another turn for the worst. This could be off putting if it were not for the fact that Kadrey imbues his character with so much wit, regarding his situation. He worries about his dead girlfriend, hangs out with a talking head and loathes his notoriety as a violent hit man, which is odd because he is a violent hit man; barely a scene goes past without him being harmed or his clothes being ruined. Originally if he was attacked one way, he became immune to any similar attack, worryingly this appears to be wearing off, leaving him vulnerable.

The trouble starts when Lucifer hits town, intent on making a film of his life story, from his point of view. He hires Stark as a bodyguard as he’s getting a bit sick of the infighting happening in Hell and wants to get away for a while. Through Lucifer, Stark is introduced to Brigitte Bardo, a French porn star who is trying to go legit in L.A. After eleven years in Hell, Stark is drawn to the entrancing Bardo, who reawakens parts of him he thought had gone into permanent sleep.

The living dead start to invade the city and what initially looks like a couple of zombies on the loose soon turns out to be a much more complicated plan to bring down both Heaven and Hell.

One of the things that the book does so well is to play with the tropes of the genre. Lucifer is a misunderstood errant son still trying to get back into Heaven and God's good books, whilst stressing about the discontent which is infesting Hell. Zombies can be talkative, vampires downright friendly.

He weaves a pretty tight narrative and the twists that the tale goes through are unexpected, lacking signposting, which creates a number of real surprises. The pace of the book is fast with lots of action, really Stark can barely get out of the house without gutting something and having his clothes ruined, again. But this never gets old, the dialogue is snappy, witty and smart, the story is told with a real visual flair.

I really enjoyed the first book for its B movie sensibilities, with Kill the Dead Kadrey has gone for a richer, densely plotted story, making the whole thing even better.

8

Charles Packer