Alive in Necropolis by Doug Dorst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Just finished ALIVE IN NECROPOLIS by Doug Dorst, a wild first novel that is equal measures hard-boiled cop story and zombie invasion. The tale starts out with the near-death of a young man in a cemetery– he’s rescued by our hero, Officer Mercer and his partner, Toronto. As the boy hovers near death in the hospital, the officers try to figure out how the kid got all tied up and left for dead in a mausoleum. While all that’s going on, the officers’ private lives slowly disintegrate, and Mercer starts seeing DEAD PEOPLE.
The tension between the two aspects of the tale remains in a fun, unsettling balance for most of the book, which means that this supernatural detective story is kind of unlike anything i’ve ever read before. Strange, funny, creepy, unsettling– by turns ALIVE IN NECROPOLIS is all of these. Does Dorst answer all the questions he raises? Not by a long shot. But the dark joke, and earnest quest-for-meaning at the heart of the tale still made it a fine book to read.
