The Dead Man: The Death Match – Christa Faust

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Christa Faust, horror/thriler, Lee Goldberg, The Dead Man, William Rabkin

Matt Cahill comes to L.A. because of a photo in a newspaper. A man that had been found eviscerated. But the photo of him showed tattoos on his arms and one was of Mr. Dark.

At the place where the man worked, he finds vicious fighting matches between women. Most of the people watching have those things only he can see, the evil in folks. These aren’t as gone as most, just pustules leaking around their necks. But it tells Matt that something very bad is coming. Then he breaks up a fight between a young woman, Stacy Barnett, and three of the head man’s stooges.

Stacy is looking for her friend, and more, that took the invite to fight and had gone missing.

Matt is drawn into a world of underground fighting, seemingly orchestrated by Mr. Dark, just another in the evil entity’s taunting of Matt and his efforts to stop the evil.

Another fine chapter in the Dead Man saga, this one written by Christa Faust, a fine writer.

Liked this one a lot.

The official release date is tomorrow, September 18th, but it seems to be already available.

The Dead Man: Kill Them All – Harry Shannon

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Harry Shannon, The Dead Man

The Dead Man relaunches this coming week under Amazon publishing’s 47North sf/horror/fantasy imprint. The five early books will be gathered into trade paperbacks several to a volume, the first which can be ordered HERE, and in late November, KILL THEM ALL will be released.

Matt Cahill, the living dead man, rescues a teenager that’s fell into an old man and becomes a hero to the people of the struggling Nevada “old west” town. He’s suddenly a hero and the talk of the small town.

Unknown to him, a team of mercenaries is hunting him, hired by a university who think they can learn what makes him alive when he should be dead. The small town is in danger, because these mercenaries want two things: his blood and no witnesses!

He must galvanize them into helping themselves. Though they outnumber the four mercenaries, they are outgunned and out-trained. There’s also evidence that Matt’s ever present enemy, Mr. Dark, is somewhere around. His new “abilities” allow him to see evil where others can’t and the rotting, pus-filled faces of the mercenaries are all the evidence he needs that they are contolled by Mr. Dark.

This series has rapidly become a favorite and with the deal Lee Goldberg has signed with Amazon, these books will be available for those without ereaders. If you like good action/horror, these will be right up your alley. Lee Goldberg, Willaim Rabkin, James Daniels, David MacAfee, and James Reasoner have contributed entries so far.

Worth a look. I promise you.

The Dead Man: The Blood Mesa – James Reasoner

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James Reasoner, Lee Goldberg, The Dead Man

James Reasoner is the latest author to do one of the DEAD MAN books, due out July 5th. THE BLOOD MESA has an element that has fascinated people, myself included, for many years. The mystery of the Anasazi people. Native Americans that seemed to simply abandon their homes all over the southwest. There have been all sorts of theories, some logical, some superstitious, offered up. No one knows for sure,

Matt Cahill finds himself in New Mexico, drawn toward a mesa for some reason. Not unknown as he’s positive it will have to do with his particular talents since his resurrection from the dead after being frozen three months when caught in an avalanche. To come back to life on the autopsy table was only the first strange thing he’d encountered since then. He now sees the evil in people, manifesting in rotting flesh, oozing sores, a putrid stench, that no one else can see.

Hiking along the New Nexico highway, he encounters a broke down two-and-a-half ton truck and two doctors, PhDs in archeology, Veronica Dupre and-Andrew Hammond! Right away he knows what brought him here. Hammond’s face had the telltale signs of evil that only he could see. The truck had died, they said, and it didn’t take Matt long to find the loose wire on the alternator, reattaching it and swapping out the dead battery for the spare in back. Their original driver/handyman had quit them and Matt takes the job when offered.

They were excavating an Anasazi site atop the Blood Mesa, so named because of the red sandstone that looks the color of blood when the sun hits it right. Good name, considering Hammond sitting over by the passenger door. A long and winding road to the top and Matt even sees what he thought he would on the way up: Mr. Dark and his lollipop with a little wave as he passes. Several sites are being excavated atop the mesa. Matt feels the emanations from one that tell him unearthing it will be trouble. Another appears to be a trash pit filled with human bones with teeth marks, human teeth, and no scorch marks indicated the flesh was eaten raw. Something terrible went on here twelve hundred years ago.

Soon Matt finds himself embroiled once again with that evil only he sees and all that stands between that evil and the lives of the innocent and his father’s axe and himself.

James has fashioned an action filled story to add to the DEAD MAN saga, a series that I’ve become a big fan of since it started. Along with this story is an exert form his recent ebbok of an older work, UNDER OUTLAW FLAGS, as well as an exert from the next book in the series, KILL THEM ALL by Harry Shannon.

The Dead Woman – David McAfee

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David McAfee, The Dead Man

The fourth book in THE DEAD MAN series is due for release on June 2nd. It has rapidly become one of my favorites, an amalgam of the old men’s adventure novels that had their heydays in the seventies and a touch of horror. Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin created the story of Matt Cahill, the living dead man, and have penned a couple of tales so far. They’ve opened up their playground to some of the best writers working today and THE DEAD WOMAN by David McAfee is the second by one of those writers.

Matt Cahill arrives in Crawford by bus, clutching an old newspaper he’d found, to respond to an ad inside. Funds were low and he needed some job to earn more in his search for the horrible -monster?- Mr. Dark, that being he’d been seeing since his return to life after being dead for three months, frozen in an avalanche. As a result, he now saw the evil in people, knowing they were about to do something soon. It manifested in open sores, rotting flesh, foul odors that only he could see.

Abbey was the young woman who’d advertised for someone. She was cleaning out an old antique shop that her late mother had owned, moving everything to storage, and was offering ten dollars an hour. Just the kind of thing Matt was looking for to build his bankroll. She was good looking as well and Matt felt an attraction.

There were things going on in Crawford.

The Blake County Killer, a serial murderer who’d killed a dozen young women in the last few years, was being hunted. A jealous cop, the ex-husband of Abbey, was making things hot for Matt. And of course Mr. Dark puts in an appearance, following a man that passes Matt while he’s having lunch with Abbey, the first he’d seen in town with rotting flesh dripping off his skull. That’s when Matt learns of the Dead woman, a person like him.

A fine edition in the series. We learn a few new things about Matt Cahill and a possible new plot thread.

At the end is an exert of the next book in the series, THE BLOOD MESA by James Reasoner, as well as the first chapter of David McAfee’s horror novel, 33 A.D. Both look good.

update: THE DEAD WOMAN is available now on AMAZON KINDLE.

The Dead Man: Hell In Heaven

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Lee Goldberg, The Dead Man, William Rabkin

Heaven, Washington was not what Matt Cahill had expected when he turned his motorbike at the sign on the main highway, the perverse humor of a dead man going to Heaven striking him. It seemed out of time, a small town with a general store, a diner, and small wooden houses. The people were all dressed old style, the men jeans, flannel shirts and boots, the women, some the same, others in dresses and boots. No tee shirts or athletic shoes in evidence, even with the young folks.

The really odd thing was the banner strung across the street that read WELCOME HOME MATT.

Matt sensed that something wasn’t right in this small town and all he wanted to do was leave. But the woman, Joan Delaney, the friendliest of the folks, whispered, “Help me!” He knew then that he wasn’t going to be able to leave until he figured out what was going on here. How he didn’t know.

Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin have crafted an interesting series here, combining elements of the old men’s adventure novels from the seventies with a touch of horror. It’s working well and they’ve invited other writers into their playground.

I’m looking forward to more of these stories. Short quick reads, they are a lot of fun.

Recommended.

The Dead Man: Ring of Knives – James Daniels

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James Daniels, The Dead Man

RING OF KNIVES is the second entry in Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin’s new ebook series that melds the old men’s adventure series of the seventies with a horror element. James Daniels is the author this time around.

Matt Cahill is the Dead Man. Caught in an avalanche while on a skiing trip, his frozen body is found three months later. When it thaws, he’s still alive. But more than that miracle, Matt sees things, the evil in people about to do horrific things. he sees them as rotting faces, bodies, their souls already dead. He also sees Mr. Dark, a taunting figure with the deadly touch.

Matt has come to the Carthage Mental Health Center to interview a man he’d read about in a book: Jesse Weston, a fellow who’d been trapped on a ledge alone for six days after a friend had fallen to his death. His psyche shattered, he talks about Rotting jack, a figure that comes to him. He may hold the answer to his defeating his own personal demons. Matt had arranged with the man’s doctor to speak with him.

When he arrives, things seem a little out of sorts. Weston has been transferred out and when he asks to speak with the docotr, he learns he’s now a patient there. The place is disgusting also, dirty, no one seems to be in charge(the director and head nurse just didn’t show up one day). And before the night is over, he finds himself deep in the woods in a circle from hell, a circle of knives that he must find a way out of.

And his own demon shows up as well.

A nice entry in the series, I knocked this one out in a couple of hours. Bodes well for the series. There’s also an exert from Daniel’s novel, GHOST BRIDE, and one from the next book in this series.

The Dead Man: Face of Evil – Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin

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Lee Goldberg, The Dead Man, William Rabkin

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL is the first entry in a new series of e-book novels. Authors Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin lay the groundwork here for other writers, along with them one presumes, to add new tales in the coming months. Lee explains on his blog a bit about the series.

I was a huge fan of those men’s adventure novels back in the day(I even have the three .357 Magnum Vigilante novels he published as by Ian Ludlow). The Executioner, The Butcher, The Destroyer, and on and on. Mack Bolan is the last one left, though The Destroyer died only a year or so ago. As I’m also a Stephen King fan, a series that combines the sensibilities of both was an instant draw.

Matthew Cahill, just an ordinary man thrust into something extraordinary after a horrific accident changes everything. There’s an evil out there that only he can see and he embarks on a search for answers. Why did he survive? How? What is his role in all this? Who is guiding him and for what purpose? Part of it seems obvious to a bewildered man who has a new chance at life. He leaves friends and family behind, partly to protect them, partly to look for those answers.

A lot in that last paragraph are my own speculations, mixed with what the authors have revealed so far. In my mind, the mark of good fiction. i don’t like everything laid out for me. I like to figure as I read and see how well my thoughts mesh with what’s being told to us, the readers. If I figure it out, good, if not, even better. I love being surprised and i get the feeling this series is going to be one of those I have to get as soon as each is released. This first book comes on the twentieth of this month.

Recommended.