All the World’s an Undead Stage

All the World’s an Undead Stage (2018) Angel Martinez

The conclusion to the Offbeat Crimes series (or at least the story arc of who has been targeting Precinct 77) concludes with us going back to Carrington and Erasmus, who are happy enough together, although neither has said the “L” word yet.

“Did you skip lunch again?” Carrington had on his frown of disapproval. Too bad it was an adorable frown that Erasmus had trouble taking seriously.

But we get HEAs for everyone here, including Vance and Amanda–and perhaps even Audacity.

Do you like your new uniform?”

Mew. Miii-iiw. Audacity pedaled with all four paws until LJ set her down. She turned in an obvious modeling pose to show Carrington one side of the vest with POLICE stenciled in white block letters, then turned to display the other side with CADET FAMILIAR. If that wasn’t Jason’s idea, Carrington would eat his police hat and Amanda’s.

Yes, that is disgustingly adorable, but since Audacity seems to have been enhanced by the various magics she’s been around (and she IS a kitten) I’m weirdly ok with it.

There are still lots of geeky undertones here, which are a delight.

Probably just another fox, but let’s be thorough. Oh, and if it is a fox, tell the nice civilians that sometimes a red fox is just a red fox and to stop watching so much anime.”

“What’s he talking about?” Vance murmured to his partner.

Sadly, there are zombies here, but they aren’t brains devouring zombies, so that’s less awful.

“We decided to call it a zorpse,” Kyle called out.

“Pardon?”

“Well, Dr. Moreau refused to call it a zombie and animated corpse is just too much of a mouthful—”

“Hence zorpse,” Kash finished from beside Kyle.

They’re still gross-the shambling, play-reciting, rotting, undead. But they’re not trying to eat everyone’s brains.

He turned to his husband. “What’s the collective noun for zombies?”

“Why would I know that?” Kash turned his gaze ceilingward. “Why would anyone know that?”

“I’ll take horror genre collective nouns for a hundred, please,” Jeff said with a poorly concealed snicker. “I think horde works.”

Pecca raised a hand, waving it wildly. “Oh! Shambles! I like shambles for a group of zombies. This is fun. Is this how investigations usually work?”

“Ah, perhaps not so much in other departments.”

I figured out the bad guy pretty early on, along with the other surprise reveals, but I was ok with that, because they weren’t something that would be obvious to unexpecting characters (I, the omniscient fantasy reader am good and picking up hints dropped by the author, whereas the characters have a lot more information to sort out.)

I also was impressed by the conflict between Carr and Ras. Not that I especially wanted there to be a conflict, but the situation was such that said conflict was likely to happen, and I like how it was sorted out. So even though Carr is my least favorite character, he didn’t especially annoy me here.

In short, it was a fun and enjoyable series with HEAs for everyone, but lots of fun and unexpected twists.

Publisher: Pride Publishing
Rating: 8/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• Suffer Little Children » »
• « « Jackalopes and Woofen-Poofs