Dead Folks - Hardcover

Jackson, Jon A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871136384 ISBN 13: 9780871136381

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996

Synopsis

After spending most of Deadman - the prequel to Dead Folks - in a coma, Joe Service has partially recovered and is on the run again from would-be mob assassins. When he resurfaces in Salt Lake City with the aid of an innocent bed nurse and his own unfailing craftiness, Mulheisen, eager to finally nab him, is immediately on his tail. The Mormon capital becomes a meeting ground for a motley crew of mobsters, murderers, and fugitives as Joe attempts to regain both his memory and the millions of dollars heisted by his longtime lover, Helen Sedlacek. As dead bodies begin to turn up around town, Mulheisen is at the center of the action, putting together the pieces of the puzzle while Joe struggles to evade Mulheisen's detection, the Detroit mob, a relentless hit woman, and a gang of Tongan giants.

About this title

Review

Jackson brings back Joe Service from the brink of death. The smooth womanizing hit man who killed a Detroit gangleader in Hit on the House, and then in the sequel Deadman was himself shot and left in a coma, is hiding out in the city of the Saints, Salt Lake City, where he is trying to recover--among other things--his memory of where he may have stashed that cash he liberated from the mob. He has found the company of a sweet nurse, but the mob is on his tail, as are the cops. Salt Lake City is pretty different from Detroit, but things don't stay peaceable in Utah for long.

From Publishers Weekly

The trajectory of marginal Detroit mobman Joe Service continues to leave a mess in its aftermath, the clearing up of which seems to be the eternal lot of Detroit copper Fang Mulheisen, now in his sixth appearance. In Deadman (1994), Joe was left in Montana, shot in the head. Here, still recovering from his coma, he takes off for Salt Lake City with his smitten nurse, Cathleen Yoder, who was lusted after by the female shooter in the previous novel. Joe and Cathleen become lovers, but his memory isn't as functional as his sex drive: he can't remember where his money is, and he has violent encounters with some large angry hoods from Tonga, whom he isn't sure really exist. Meanwhile Fang is falling hard for a rural woman in Montana, where he is still tracing Joe's part in previous killings. Jackson doesn't move this tale much beyond the plot of the previous episode, which at first might seem like a stumbling block for new readers. But the wacky richness of the author's prose eases such trifles aside. Jackson keeps control of his chaotic material, successfully pausing mid-narrative to linger on the diet-fixated life of a Detroit crime lord or detour to explore a weird car-selling scam. The big Tongans are in a nutso class all of their own. While none of this is perfectly resolved, at least the readers have a better handle on things than Fang, and especially poor old Joe, for whom the only sure things in life are his dogged survival, his powers with the fair sex and the sad fact that Fang will never give up the chase.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0871136384
• ISBN 13: 9780871136381
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264