UNNATURAL ACTS

Another full caseload for Dan Shamble, the zombie detective who was just warming up when he solved his own murder in Death Warmed Over (2012).

Dan’s reputation in the Unnatural Quarter has made him the shamus of last resort for any number of monsters. A golem named Bill begs him to help emancipate a hundred of his fellow golems from their servitude making toys for Maximilian Grubb, aka Maximum Max. The ghost of bank robber Alphonse Wheeler wants the help of Dan’s partner, still-human lawyer Robin Deyer, in making sure he can live off the money he served 20 years for stealing. Neffi, the mummy who runs the Full Moon brothel, summons Dan to find some rent-a-goons to protect her establishment from the violent followers of conservative Sen. Rupert Balfour, whose Unnatural Acts Act threatens the rights of all the undead. Dan’s old nemesis Harvey Jekyll insists that Robin file an anti-discrimination suit when he’s barred from moving out of the Unnatural Quarter. An actor who insists that his name is William Shakespeare hires Dan to find the person who set his outdoor theater on fire, and crusading social worker Hope Saldana asks him to help her zombie assistant, Jerry, track down the heart and soul he pawned to Snazz, the gremlin owner of Timeworn Treasures. It’s this last case that produces a fresh corpse when Dan breaks into Snazz’s cluttered shop, intending to look over the ledger that identifies the party who purchased Jerry’s heart and soul, and finds the pawnbroker strangled to death under circumstances that look very awkward indeed for the zombie sleuth.

As exhaustingly inventive and jokey as Dan’s debut. Think of the entire first season of True Blood on fast forward.