Michael Dempsey (2)

This novel is about a man who wakes up in a strange, neo-futuristic world, after his murder.

Paul Donner is an NYPD detective who is out for the evening with his wife. They walk in on a bodega robbery, and are killed. He wakes up, forty years later, due to something called the Shift. Said to be the side effect of a retroviral attack, it re-animates the DNA of dead people, causing them to come to life. No, they don't turn into zombies, but they do age younger (an adult becomes a teenager, who show more becomes a child, then an infant, and ends as a hunk of protoplasm). Such reborn people, or "reebs," are considered third-class citizens, so Donner has to investigate his murder on his own.

A protective blister, or dome, is being built over New York City to keep the Shift "virus" (for lack of a better term) from infecting the rest of America. Manhattan has reverted to the 1930's, the time of Dashiell Hammett and the Studebaker. Harlem has gone back to the time of the Harlem Renaissance, and Greenwich Village is now in the 1960's hippie era. As Donner looks into his murder, he discovers some interesting things, like the person accused of killing him was intentionally released, without being charged. The conspiracy gets bigger and bigger, with Donner and his wife at the center. It involves the existence of an actual immortality serum, and a plan to kill millions of people in a very public, and gruesome, way, to solidify social control over the Big Apple.

This book works on a number of levels. It works really well as a regular detective story. It also works for those who liked the film "Blade Runner." It's well done from start to finish, and the twists and turns will keep the reader guessing. Here is a first-rate piece of writing. show less

I keep my eye out for urban fantasy with an unusual angle. By 'unusual,' you can assume a distinct lack of werewolves and vampires. This one caught my eye with a combination of police detective, New York City, and the idea that the dead return to life. Not as zombies, mind you, but just as people--but aging backwards. Within the first few pages, the detective Donner and his wife, Elsie, are killed in a bodega. Next moment is at graveside, as a team of people disinter and transport Donner to show more a hospital to repair his life-threatening wounds, throwing in a replacement liver as a bonus. Donner has become a 'reborn,' marked by white hair and black nails, and current society seems to hate them, perhaps because they are the reason NYC is now surrounded by a force field and isolated from the rest of the world in hopes of keeping the virus contained.

It's really an intriguing set-up, and trying to work out both the mystery and the world kept me engrossed. Divided into three parts, the first centers on Donner's rebirth, and a certain investigation he's forced to take on. 'Part Two: The Underneath,' centers on a the results of that investigation after some very significant events. The last third, "Unicorn Hunt,' is the classic resolution. Chapters are often very short, some only two pages long, and take a variety of perspectives and formats. There are a couple that are transcripts of conversations, and a couple that are part of internet broadcasts. Sections written from Donner's perspective tend to be longer.

"No escape. Even the sky was wrong, swirling and out of focus behind the magnetic Blister. The whole thing, the combination platter of styles and periods, made me want to curl into a tight ball right there on the cold street.

I'd busted this crack fiend once. He'd been a real hardcase, back from a two-week suicide run during which he'd stolen his grandmother's silver, gotten kicked out of another shelter and flushed his last chance at redemption down the crapper. I remember him telling me as the cuffs clicked shut, 'I got no place to go that I understand.'

Now I knew what he was talking about."

When I read 'about the author' at the end, this started to make more sense; the author has extensive television writing experience, including Cybil (with Cybil Shepard) and numerous plays. So my difficulties with the book largely had to do with this choppiness of perspective. Even before I knew Dempsey was a tv writer, I guessed it, as scenes began to visualize as I read. 'Cut,' cue 'flashback scene with wife,' 'cut' cue 'current scene where Donner has a dramatic revelation' 'cut' 'scene with villain showing them doing something villainous.'

On the upside, this made for a relatively fast-paced, easy read; no small feat given a decently-written trade paperback at 360 pages. Despite shifting perspectives, I thought it was surprisingly coherent. On the down side, there were several sections that were extraneous (the viewpoint of a rich teen whose father became a reborn, for instance) that were mostly serving to build suspense at how dastardly the forces Donner was investigating were. The transcripts were too clever, attempting to foreshadow a predictable 'mysterious figure' but then blindsiding the reader when the figure's full history was unveiled.

The underpinning of the book is the Philip Marlowe school of detection. Some will argue that the characters were stereotypical, but I believe that is kind of the point. We have the alcoholic detective, the gamine Girl Friday, the sultry woman wanting a favor, the contacts in the police force, along with all the plot stereotypes it entails. But wrapped around it all is a Blade Runner sci-fi world with flying cars, a 'net' that holds all information ever needed, 'smartie' artificial intelligences that look just like humans, and the seeds of revolution in the hotbed of the city (it also put me in mind of Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, not the least of which one of the watchers to the unburial is named Kovacs). It probably isn't sci-fi as much as some would like--there's some hand-wavy genetics going on--but it is certainly an intriguing ride. I think I'll keep it around my library for awhile and hopefully give it a re-read.

2011 interview with Dempsey at MyBookishWays: http://www.mybookishways.com/2011/12/interview-michael-dempsey-author-of-necropo...

First chapter of Necropolis at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/281257-excerpt-from-necropolis

Three and a half stars, rounding up show less

This book weaves two related mystery plots together in an artfully-constructed speculative future. The twists and turns ensure suspense, occasionally surprise, but avoid the mistake of going so far out of the realm of plausibility that it ruins the tale. The political and ethical undertones are just hefty enough to add depth, without overshadowing the excellent story-telling. Although all of the characters are well-written, the main protagonist and antagonist stand out as truly excellent show more examples of how a good author can breath new life into archetypes like the private eye and the femme fatale. I highly recommend this book and eagerly await Dempsey's next book. Very impressive for a debut novel! show less

First sentence: “Ten minutes before I died, I realized I was out of cigarettes.”

I’m not normally a huge fan of the science fiction/fantasy genre. I want to be, but I have so many preferences I’m too picky for most of them to satisfy me. Occasionally I’ll come across one that makes me happy and hits all my buttons. Such was the case with this book. I got this as an e-book when it was on sale and I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and it got bonus points for being a mystery as show more well. I’m really glad I took a chance, because I really loved this book. Everything was perfectly done here – the characters, the mystery, the world-building.

It begins in the year 2012 with NYPD detective Paul Donner and his wife Elise being killed in a quick-mart. It then jumps 50 years in the future, where the ‘Shift’ has occurred that has caused DNA in some corpses to reverse and begin aging backwards. These newly reborn people (derogatively called ‘Reebs’) are the new underclass in New York City, which has been quarantined in a bubble referred to as “the Blister”. When Paul’s body starts to regenerate his body is removed from his grave and rushed to a hospital. Upon release Paul finds a purpose in this new and confusing world by researching his death and trying to track down his killer.

I really enjoyed reading this book and will look forward to more from this author. show less