Kill the Dead: A Sandman Slim Novel

Supernatural fantasy's best antihero returns, in the high-octane follow-up to Richard Kadrey's acclaimed Sandman Slim.

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend's murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It's a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse.

Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard. Sandman Slim has to swim with the human and inhuman sharks of L.A.'s underground power elite. That's before the murders start. And before he runs into the Czech porn star who isn't quite what she seems. Even before all those murdered people start coming back from the dead and join a zombie army that will change our world and Stark's forever.

Death bites. Life is worse. All things considered, Hell's not looking so bad.

"James Stark, antihero of 2009's Sandman Slim, returns in this gritty, over-the-top tale of supernatural mayhem. Having taken his revenge on the rival magician who got him sent to Hell, Stark settles in sorcery-infested Los Angeles and gets a part-time gig with the Golden Vigil, an angelic hit squad of dubious morality that's somehow allied with Homeland Security. He spends the rest of his time as a freelance slayer of monsters. When Lucifer comes to Earth, supposedly to oversee a Hollywood biopic of his life, he hires Stark to be his bodyguard, but something isn't quite right and soon the city is awash in murderous zombies. Stark has to get to the bottom of the mystery or risk being sent back to Hell, along with everyone he cares about. Profane, intensely metaphoric language somehow makes self-tortured monster Stark sympathetic and turns a simple story into a powerful noir thriller. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

"Hilarious...belongs up there with Dresden Files and Felix Castor novels....[S]ome of the best supernatural buddy comedy ever created....This is that rare sequel that's actually better than the first book (which was plenty great) and manages to take several leaps forward." iO9

"Everything a sequel should be; that is, more....There's hardly a moment where you're not chewing your fingernails to the wrist wondering what happens next....Kadrey is a hell of a writer, versatile and seasoned, and these pulpy, dark, ultraviolent novels are his best work yet." Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

Kadrey returns with the high-octane follow-up to Sandman Slim, which finds Stark as bodyguard to Lucifer.

“Sandman Slim is my kind of hero.”
—Kim Harrison

“Richard Kadrey is a genius.”
—Holly Black

Sandman Slim is back from Hell. After wreaking unholy havoc in author Richard Kadreys resoundingly acclaimed Sandman Slim, the demon-slaying anti-hero and half-angel fugitive from the underworld returns in a brutally funny, eye-poppingly inventive, and totally addicting follow-up, Kill the Dead. If youre a fan of Buffy and Jim Butcher, Christopher Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Warren Ellis, or you dig the dark urban fantasy vibe of Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, and Simon Green, youll cheer Lucifers onetime personal assassin as he signs on as his ex-boss Hollywood bodyguard…and takes on the zombie apocalypse almost single-handedly.

Richard Kadrey has published four novels, including Butcher Bird and Metrophage, and more than fifty stories. He has been immortalized as an action figure, and his short story "Goodbye Houston Street, Goodbye" was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award. A freelance writer and photographer, he lives in San Francisco.