Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
For those of us who like our horror on the light side, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is just the ticket. Sam (short for Samhain, instead of the usual Samuel) is working at a fast-food joint while he figures out what to do with his life. He has great friends there, but the job is crap and he knows he needs some direction in his life. And then direction is forced upon him when scary Douglas Montgomery comes into Plumpy’s. Douglas is mad because a potato broke the taillight of his expensive car (a potato that was being used as a puck during a street hockey game). But he gets distracted when he meets Sam, and Sam finds his calm state to be much more menacing than his angry state.
You see, Douglas is a necromancer, and he recognizes that trait in Sam as well. Which is news to Sam, and not welcome news, at that. Douglas is powerful and corrupt, and having another necromancer in the area is not something he’s happy about. And when Douglas is not happy, nobody is happy.
If you’re a fan of Christopher Moore’s horror novels (such as Bloodsucking Fiends or A Dirty Job), I think you’ll like McBride. The ending definitely begs for a sequel, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she gets one out soon.
Humpty Dumpty has had a big fall indeed, and it looks like foul play. So thinks Jack Spratt, the head of the under-staffed and under-funded Nursery Crimes Division of the Reading Police Department. Jack’s getting pressure to wind up the Humpty investigation quickly, in order to make up his recent debacle trying to convice the 3 pigs of pre-meditated murder of the wolf. But the Humpty investigation is raising more questions than answers, and Jack’s whole Nursery Crimes department is on the line.