DEADBEAT: MAKES YOU STRONGER

Whatever you do, don't call them zombies.

The protagonists in Guy Adams' 2013 novel DEADBEAT: MAKES YOU STRONGER are NOT zombies. They make that point explicitly clear over and over again. But they are the living dead, the walking dead (nope, can't use that one either!), or simply "reanimates", people who were alive, died and then mysteriously, inexplicably, returned  to life. Adams plays fast and loose here (hell, he down right cheats) by not providing any real explication for just exactly how it is that these fine gents, Max and Tom, managed to return to the land of the living after being stone cold dead. He leaves it up to the readers' imagination. Is that Adams being a clever writer or a lazy one? My vote is for lazy but you might lean the other way.

Our heroes, Tom and Max, own and operate a small nightclub in London that specializes in jazz and blues. The name of the club? Deadbeat, of course. They become involved in a wild adventure involving a life insurance company, a nefarious funeral home and a mad doctor. It's all part of a sinister body organ harvesting plot that Tom and Max run afoul of and, rather than go to the police, decide to play detective themselves (along with some pals, both living and reanimated) to solve the mystery and smash the crime ring.

Adams's narrative mixes heaping handfuls of humor and horror and keeps things moving at a breakneck pace. Each chapter is narrated by a different character (although Tom and Max get the majority of the storytelling), so we see events from multiple points of view. DEADBEAT: MAKES YOU STRONGER is a fast paced, funny, breezy little horror novel that doesn't take itself seriously and lets you know that you shouldn't either.

Recommended for horror fiction fans.