All the World’s an Undead Stage

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

The final book in the Offbeat Crimes series.

This completes Carrington Loveless and Erasmus Graham’s story arc, as well as the overall story arc o just WHY is everything so weird in Philadelphia.

We also get resolution for other characters, including Vance.

“He has seemed more, shall we say, even-keeled lately. Though I assumed that had to do with winning joint custody.”

“Carr, you just don’t know.” Jeff shook his head. “He was wound so damn tight for so long about losing his kids, I thought he’d shatter some days. He’s getting better though and he’s really trying.”

But never fear, things are still ridiculous, as Carr’s mother decides that the 77th needs an open house.

“You need to behave, Edgar. Hear me?” she told her familiar too softly for human ears to hear.

“Crap!” Edgar responded with a ruffle of his feathers.

“No. No cussing. No questionable language. No pranks.”

“Snacks!”

“Fine. But I’ll be busy. Who will you be good for if they feed you?”

One of the more important things is that Carrington acts mostly like a grown-up here, which makes him so much easier to deal with. Carr and Ras still have issues to work out, but Carr has finally started behaving like an adult, which made it SO much easier for me to like him here.

But mostly I love the fun.

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.”

We also (as I mentioned) get the over-all mystery of why Philadelphia is such a center for weirdness. It wasn’t the strongest part of the story, but it was good to get it resolved.

A quibble:

Alex let Hunter and LJ out of the back seat and made introductions, with Erasmus forewarned about how animated outerwear shook hands.

All three were at Kash and Kyle’s wedding. So they should have met there.

But there are mostly strengths here, from the resolution of the final issue that Ras and Carr have, which I thought was incredibly well done, to Carr’s acceptance of his relationships with his family. His parents are always going to be difficult, but he seems to much better able to deal with it.

So: yay!

Publisher: Pride Publishing
Rating: 8/10

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