Slimy Underbelly

September 1, 2014
Dan Chambeaux, zombie private eye (Hair Raising, 2013, etc.), once again juggles a series of cases as deftly as if he were equipped with the same tireless tentacles as his chief suspect. In the Unnatural Quarter, it's either a feast or an orgy of malefactors. Just as Chambeaux & Deyer's former client, frog demon Lurrm, is celebrating the opening of the Recompose Spa, his smartly refurbished zombie bathhouse, the competition between Alastair Cumulus III and Chambeaux's client Thunder Dick over which of them will be elected head of the Weather Wizards Fraternal Order breaks into open warfare, as each wizard stoops to new lows to undermine the other. Mr. Bignome, head of a ring of garden gnomes that robs flower shops, compounds his felonies by stealing the glorious baritone voice of Stentor, the ogre opera star who's frantic that he'll get fired by The Phantom of the Opera. Twelve-year-old junior mad scientist Jody Caligari seizes the moment to ask Chambeaux to take on a pro bono case: overturning his eviction from the underground lab he'd rented from fearsome Ah'Chulhu, the demon sewer landlord who's the richly tentacled half-breed son of a pair of Senior Citizen Gods. Ah'Chulhu, it turns out, has a tentacle in most every one of Chambeaux's current cases-which may make them easier to solve but certainly doesn't make them any less dangerous. An appended bonus story, "Stakeout at the Vampire Circus," reminds you that the best parts of Chambeaux's waggish adventures are often the early chapters, before the normal zaniness of the Unnatural Quarter gets clogged with criminal mischief. Anderson's obviously found his niche. Readers who share it will be in zombie heaven, or wherever zombies would go if there were life after undeath.

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September 15, 2014

Dan Shamble (last seen in 2013's Hair Raising) is the PI to call when there's trouble in the Unnatural Quarter, and the zombie detective has his hands full with a new sewer-dwelling villain. Readers can get a sense of the humor of the series when they know that the bad guy's name is Ah Chulhu. Gesundheit!

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Zombie PI Dan Chambeauxor Dan Shamble, as some prefer to call himreturns for another funny, spooky adventure. As usual, Dan is juggling a handful of complaints: a couple of weather wizards are making life a bit unpredictable; an opera singer's voice has been kidnapped; a teenage mad scientist says he was unfairly evicted from his laboratory; and someone is causing the city's plumbing to back up, causing a stench so bad that even Dan, whose olfactory sense is severely limited due to his walking-dead status, is offended by it. The basic premise is silly (A zombie private investigator? Seriously?), but Anderson is clearly aware of that and packs the book with in-jokes, references to horror-genre staples (the evicted mad scientist's name is Caligari, after the classic film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and plenty of goofy goings-on. But, still, there's a tender sideDan and his girlfriend, a ghost, make a very appealing coupleand Anderson builds a solid, engaging mystery whose solution is rather delightful. A thoroughly entertaining book for fans of horror, horror comedy, and mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)