Friday, November 25, 2011

Review: Necropolis by Michael Dempsey


Necropolis by Michael Dempsey
361 pp pb novel
Night Shade Books www.nightshadebooks.com


Now here is a novel that is either easy or hard to classify depending on what type of venue you are most likely to place the book into.

Necropolis is easily an urban fantasy but with strong science fiction frameworks holding the story up and threaded through it all is a damn good detective murder / mystery!

Many novels might bandy about the phrase something for everyone, but let me tell you Michael Dempsey with Necropolis – delivers. Hard bitten x cop pressed into solving a missing person / murder. The murder mystery may well be his own.

X New York cop Paul Donner clearly remembers his murder along with that of his wife in a neighborhood bodega, while buying cigarettes. The weird thing is – he is not dead and it's fifty years since he “died”.

It would appear that during Donner's death, a terrorist organization released a bio weapon called Shift which brings, for the most part, the dead back to life....but to grow old? Nope, to grow young and finally disappear as undifferentiated cells. He is now the under of the underclass, no rights, no real work, only the worst living conditions. In this milieu Donner is once again a detective. A detective in a world that seems to have been drawn straight out of a Raymond Chandler detective novel.

But there are plusses. His side kick is Maggie an AI girl Friday who helps him in his quest to uncover who was responsible for not only destroying his world but just about everyone else's as well.

And it would appear that New York may have just been a warm up. In Donner's new world, everyone is suspect and no one is really who they appear to be. And that is barely half of the problem.

Yep, Michael Dempsey's Necropolis is a mind twisting trip into madness and it takes you along for the ride. The novel is graphic. Michael did his research that is clear. The body blows and the breaking bones are all but felt. The madness invoked throughout the tale is palpable. Plus the future / past venue is so dense you can almost feel it.

I consider Necropolis worth a look. Even though its a thick volume, you still have trouble putting it down. It is a very fast read indeed. You know the double cross is coming, you just don't know when. You know someone is playing fast and loose with loyalties and you just can not wait to find out who and when and most certainly the WHY?!!!

More info on Necropolis by Michael Dempsey

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