TASTES LIKE CHICKEN is the sixth installment in Kevin J.
Anderson's Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series. Each
book in the Dan
Shamble, Zombie PI series works well as a
standalone novel. Kevin J. Anderson always explains key
terms and introduces recurring characters in a way that
makes it easy for new readers to enjoy any book in the series.
In TASTES LIKE CHICKEN Dan Chambeaux has a million different
things vying for his attention -- feral chickens, missing
members of the unnatural community, redneck vampires causing
a ruckus, and tedious Chamber of Commerce meetings. Amid all
the supernatural crime and craziness, a 10yr old vampire,
who may or may not be his daughter, is dropped into his
life. While her paternity may be in question, little Alvina
turns out to be a major character in TATES LIKE CHICKEN and
a plot stirrer without bogging the story down in unnecessary
melodrama. Alvina fits in well with this cast of heroes, and
I hope she sticks around for future stories.
As with previous Dan Shamble, Zombie PI books,
there are plenty of laughs in TASTES LIKE CHICKEN but there
is also a satirical edge thrown in with the goofy. Through
the delightful microcosm that is the Unnatural Quarter,
Kevin J. Anderson often casts the greedy as villains --
whether they be big business tycoons, civic-minded schemers,
or more transparently evil criminals. From the moment the
oily yet ingratiating Monster Chow spokesman Cyrus Redfarb
appears on the page, you know he's a secret baddie. It's
up to the reader and Dan to uncover exactly how bad he is,
and what his secrets are. Ma Hemoglobin and her gang are
familiar faces to fans of this series, and she makes an
entertaining and wily secondary villain. Ma and her boys are
in the thick of a lot of trouble in the Unnatural Quarter,
so it's an intriguing puzzle trying to sort out which
things she may be involved in, and to what degree.
TASTES LIKE CHICKEN is a rollicking detective yarn, with
villains galore, and a story you can sink your teeth into.
While this Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series doesn't
have the same level of brutality as THE WALKING DEAD, some
of the things in TASTES LIKE CHICKEN are truly horrific. The
humor and fun characters help balance the horror with great
storytelling. For returning fans, and readers new to this
series, settings like the Goblin Tavern, the Ghoul's Diner,
the Overbite Lounge, and the many upscale blood bars create
a vivid and quirky landscape. These books are addictive and
I can't wait for the next Dan Shamble, Zombie PI book!
Dan Shamble, zombie P.I. faces his most fowl case yet, when a flock of murderous feral chickens terrorizes the Unnatural Quarter. Also in the caseload, Dan deals with the sinister spokesman for Monster Chow Industries, a spreading contamination that drives vampires berserk, a serial-killer demon from the Fifth Pit of Hell, a black-market blood gang led by the nefarious Ma Hemoglobin, a ghost fighting a hostile takeover of his blood bars…and a cute little vampire girl who may, or may not, be his daughter. With his ghost girlfriend Sheyenne, his bleeding-heart lawyer partner Robin, and his Best Human Friend Officer Toby McGoohan, Dan Shamble is back from the dead and back on the case. The feathers will fly as he goes face-to-beak with the evil peckers. Includes the short story Road Kill.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE Some monsters are friendly. You learn that while working as a private investigator in the Unnatural Quarter, where you never know what size, shape, species, or temperament your clients might come in. Some monsters want to live their daily lives without undue hassles, just like anybody else. Some monsters even eat cookies and are adored by children nationwide. But some monsters eat people. They’re vicious, violent things that deserve to be called monsters. The demon Obadeus fit into that last category, without question. And McGoo—Officer Toby McGoohan, beat cop in the Quarter and my best human friend—had tracked Obadeus down before he could murder again. I was along for backup, moral support, and, if necessary, a diversion. Serial killers are bad enough, but a bloodthirsty demon serial killer, now that’s not a good thing at all. Obadeus’s death toll now stood at nineteen, and since demons can be a little OCD about round numbers, we knew he would strike again just to make it an even twenty. Fortunately for us, although not for his numerous victims, a monster with so much enthusiasm for killing isn’t very good at covering his tracks. Some supernatural psychologist or monster profiler might speculate that Obadeus wanted to be caught, deep down inside. I had a different theory: he was just too lazy to clean up his messes. We had tracked the demon down to his lair, which Obadeus called his “man cave.” The place reeked. The walls were decorated with dripping blood and flayed skin or pelts from his victims, both human and unnatural. I didn’t envy the crime-scene cleanup team, or the landlord who would have to make the place ready to rent again, after McGoo and I took care of this creep. At least Obadeus wouldn’t get his cleaning deposit back, so there was some justice in the world. The big demon bolted from his blood-soaked lair just as we arrived—which was a lucky break, because McGoo and I didn’t exactly know how to arrest a serial-killer demon from the Fifth Pit of Hell. I had no idea where the pits of hell fell, on a scale of one to ten, but pit number five must be a nasty place if it had spawned something like this. Obadeus was ugly, with a capital U-G-L-Y. He had a leathery hide with knobs, warts, scales, and leprous patches, a face full of spikes and tendrils, triangular pointed ears, and a jaw that extended all the way to the back of his head filled with enough fangs to keep an orthodontist in business for life. “Ick,” McGoo observed. “He makes vampire bats look cute.” Whether Obadeus was insulted, or enraged, or just shy, he spread his thorny wings and lurched toward the door of his lair, where the two of us happened to be standing. Letting out a roar that sounded like a cow caught in a barbed-wire fence, Obadeus charged past, knocking both of us aside like bowling pins, and smashed out the door. He ran off into the streets. “We must be scarier than I thought,” I said as the demon fled. “He could have torn us limb from limb and sipped our entrails through a straw.” “Law enforcement carries great weight.” McGoo drew his Police Special revolver, and I pulled my .38, which I considered to be just as special, even though it didn’t have the word “Special” in its name. We set off after Obadeus in hot pursuit. It was the dead of night in the Quarter, which meant the streets were busier than at any time of day. Though the monster’s great wings got in the way as he bounded out among the pedestrians, they also generated a tailwind for him as he flapped them, giving him a boost as he ran. “Make way!” I shouted. “Killer demon on the loose!” Werewolves, vampires, and witches scattered. Obadeus charged along, batting them aside. I put on a burst of speed, which isn’t always easy for a zombie. McGoo fired his revolver in the air. “Halt! In the name of the law.” Apparently Obadeus didn’t respect the law as much as McGoo hoped. He kept running. “You missed,” I said. McGoo pointed his revolver ahead and shot straight at the demon’s back. The bullet ricocheted off the pellet-hard skin and chipped the bricks on a nearby building. “Not much difference even when I don’t miss.” We sprinted past the closed-down Recompose Spa, which had formerly been the closed-down Zombie Bathhouse. Though the doors were barred and the windows dark, a pair of gaunt gray-skinned zombies stood outside the entrance, bare chested and wearing only white towels around their waists. They stared at the locked door, their faces slack and expressionless. They’d probably been there for days waiting for the place to reopen. With such blotchy and decaying skin, the zombies were long past an easy restorative treatment. Though I was running after a hellish demon covered with the blood of nineteen victims, I had to frown at my fellow undead. Though they were waiting at the spa, they clearly hadn’t taken care of their own corpses. I’m a well-preserved zombie myself, and it doesn’t come easy. I take pride in my human-like appearance, even though my flesh-colored skin needs a touchup now and then. Some people even consider me handsome, at least in dim lighting. I placed one hand on my fedora, so it wouldn’t blow off as I ran. Wind whistled through the bullet hole in my forehead. One of these days I was going to get it filled in again, but not now. As Obadeus stormed past the bathhouse and spa, the waiting zombies stood in his way. With a sweep of his massively muscled arm, he smacked one of them in the head—which not only cleared the sidewalk for Obadeus, it relieved the zombie of his head. Detached, it rolled and bounced in the gutter, still making breathy, offended noises. The other zombie watched his companion collapse in two different directions, then turned back to the door, as if still expecting the spa to reopen at any moment. “That’s twenty!” Obadeus crowed in triumph. “Doesn’t count,” I replied. “He’s still alive and kicking … sort of.” “Darn!” the demon grumbled. Despite his vicious crimes, Obadeus apparently didn’t like to use harsh language. We kept running, but the monster was pulling ahead. “Hey Shamble, I have an idea,” McGoo wheezed. His freckled face was flushed. “Get ahead of him and let him bite you—the arm or shoulder will do well enough. While he’s distracted, I’ll put handcuffs on him.” “I’ve got a better idea,” I told him, without wheezing. I wasn’t out of breath because I didn’t need to breathe, strictly speaking. “Let’s not listen to any of your suggestions.” An old man was sitting on a bench reaching into a bag full of dead flies, which he tossed toward a flock of bats that swooped around, nabbing the treats out of the air. Obadeus roared, and the old man fell off the back of the bench. The bats scattered. An animated skeleton pushing a grocery cart out of a small market tried to clatter out of the way, but the demon maliciously snatched him by the rib cage, hooking a long claw beneath his sternum and swinging him around before smashing the skeleton into the brick wall, shattering him into a pile of bones. I wasn’t sure if that counted as victim number twenty. With the undead, it can be difficult to determine the exact point at which a murder is committed. Obadeus roared and kept running. McGoo fired his revolver again—I think he just liked the sound—and we continued our pursuit. O O O A killer demon running amuck didn’t cause as much panic as you might expect. The Unnatural Quarter is full of strange creatures, some warm and fuzzy, others scary and fuzzy. Obadeus was arguably on the hideous end of the spectrum, but when the world is full of monsters right out of legends and superstition, most people aren’t too judgmental. Several years ago, when the reality-bending event called the Big Uneasy changed all the rules, humans had reeled in shock to see the return of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, succubi, banshees, even elves and fairies. Not everyone viewed this change with a sense of wonder. Eventually, most of the monsters gathered in the Quarter, where they could be themselves and not feed upon humans. Statistically speaking, unnaturals were much like anyone else: decent, law-abiding citizens with a few bad apples among them. When I was still alive and ambitious, I had set up shop as a private investigator, realizing that even vampires, werewolves, and mummies still got divorced, faced blackmail, needed to recover missing items, and so on. The usual caseload for a P.I. My partner at Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, Robin Deyer, is a young firebrand, a bleeding-heart human attorney who wants to see justice for unnaturals. Officer McGoohan, after too many politically incorrect jokes in his old precinct, found himself transferred to walk the beat in the Quarter. Like any disadvantaged ethnic group, the unnaturals faced prejudice from outside humans and had to work hard to maintain a good image. In order to temper their predatory tendencies, Monster Chow Industries mass produced tasty food for all types of unnaturals. Their major factory on the edge of the Quarter delivered enough synthetic flavored protein, at reasonable prices, to keep the monsters from eating people. And not being eaten kept the rest of the people happy. The world should have been full of peace and harmony. But some monsters—like Obadeus—were feral, primal throwbacks. They liked killing people. They were a menace to society. As Obadeus’s horrific murder spree continued, panic spread even outside the Quarter. An old werewolf was found entirely skinned, his pelt taken as a trophy. A vampire piano player who had never harmed anyone, except occasionally making bad choices in his song selections, was found decapitated, his mouth filled with garlic pesto. Five humans were gutted, their organs displayed in full Jack-the-Ripper glory. Witches were impaled with their broomsticks. An amphibious creature was locked inside a solar tanning bed until she had dried into jerky. It was horrible. All of law enforcement was desperate to catch the killer. And we had found him.
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