Psssst. Hey, kid. Want a free copy of my forthcoming novel, Dying Is My Business? St. Martin’s is doing a giveaway over at Goodreads, and 10 lucky people will walk away a winner. Sign up now!
Suspense Magazine has published a rave review of Dying Is My Business. It’s a print review in a magazine, so I can’t link to it online, but here are the highlights:
Very rarely can you say that an author has literally reinvented a genre. But when it comes to this absolutely eye-opening story, readers will find that this author has found a way to do just that…Truly an unforgettable suspense novel that’s narrated with humor and a bit of sarcasm—something that is usually only done well by Dean Koontz with his Odd Thomas series. Creepy, fun, and immensely entertaining—this book is a definite keeper!
Now that’s a review! Stay tuned. Dying Is My Business hits bookstore shelves and ebook websites on October 8!
Kirkus Reviews, notoriously, hates everything, so I take the fact that they’re merely lukewarm about Dying Is My Business as high praise! Here’s their review:
An amnesiac discovers he can’t stay dead in Kaufmann’s entry into the urban-fantasy realm.
Trent, a man who has no last name and no past that he can remember, dies often but fails to remain dead. Every time someone murders Trent, he pops back to life. Most would think that’s a pretty decent deal, but Trent is filled with remorse because his rebirth is contingent on someone else dying: usually, the person who is closest to him at the time. That’s bad enough when it’s the one who kills him, but sometimes an innocent gets the short end of the stick, and, no matter what Trent is, he does have a conscience. He also has a short memory that goes back no more than a year in the past; that’s when Underwood, the shadowy individual who has made him part of his team, found him and gave him a home in a dirty room with a single bed. Underwood promises to find out who Trent really is and why he can’t die but keeps putting it off. While Trent is on a mission to retrieve a box that Underwood wants, he blunders into a battle between a pair of odd individuals and a flock of murderous gargoyles. That’s where Trent meets Thornton, the undead werewolf, and Bethany Savory (yes, that’s her name), a tiny woman with pointy ears. They lead Trent to others who are on the same quest, including magicians, vampires and various magical creatures. Together they all face a terrible power backed by a growing army of the dead in a battle to save New York, thus setting up a future confrontation in a story yet to come.
Although Kaufmann writes well, unlike the innovative works of masters of the genre like Mike Carey and Neil Gaiman, his work tends to rely heavily on clichéd, by-the-numbers plotting.
That last sentence threw me. Not because the reviewer thinks the plot is clichéd — every critic responds differently to different things — but because the sentence is poorly structured, leading me to think at first that the reviewer was saying Mike Carey and Neil Gaiman do not write well. Which is absurd. I had to read the sentence twice over before what I assume is its true meaning revealed itself: that Carey and Gaiman’s work is not clichéd. Which is more like it.
I had a feeling the Publishers Weekly review was a fluke. Here is Booklist‘s far more positive take on Dying Is My Business:
Dying Is My Business.
Kaufmann, Nicholas (Author)
Oct 2013. 368 p. St. Martin’s/Griffin, paperback, $15.99. (9781250036100). St. Martin’s/Griffin, e-book,
$9.99. (9781250036094).
What would you do if you couldn’t die? When you get killed, you awake a few minutes later, good as new. Well, if you’re Trent, the narrator of this nifty mix of horror and urban fantasy, you’d go to work for Underwood, a Brooklyn gangster whose connections on both sides of the law might just lead you to the answers you desperately need—not just the reason why you can’t die but why your memory only goes back a year and, of course, your real identity. Trent’s latest job involves taking an antique box away from some homeless folks and delivering it into Underwood’s hands—as usual, no questions asked. But unfortunately, there are lots of questions, such as what’s in the box, who are the winged creatures guarding it, and whether Trent will choose the right side in what appears to be an ancient war between the forces of good and evil. Filled with characters that should appeal to urban fantasy readers—a zombified werewolf is a standout—and told with a real sense of style and wit, the book should have no trouble amassing an enthusiastic readership.
— David Pitt
The zombified werewolf was a standout with my first readers, too. His name is Thornton. Everybody loves Thornton.
