Synopsis:
Jack Killeen is done killing. The Detroit hitman has grown disgusted with his job and wants to turn his life around. Unfortunately for him, it’s too late: A mad surgeon has created a monster from the bodies of Killeen’s victims and the creature is animated by the damaged brain of Jack’s final target, Victor Moravian.
Now the Mob wants him dead, the cops want a piece of him, and his hard-nosed parish priest refuses to grant him absolution until he atones for his crimes. Complicating matters, Jack is in love with Marlene, Moravian’s widow, who wants him to use his particular set of skills to find her “missing” husband.
Jack’s only ally is his closeted factory worker brother Marty, whose homosexuality has strained their once close relationship and complicated the hitman’s relationship with his Mob bosses. Together they navigate the city’s underbelly and bitter racial divisions as they track the beast through the post-apocalyptic ruins of late ’90s Detroit.
It’s remorseless killing machine vs. ruthless professional killer as Jack struggles to protect his family, destroy the monster, and somehow achieve absolution for his crimes.
Review:
In Peter O’ Keefe’s Detroit, the streets are rougher than sandpaper, and the skyline looks like it’s been cobbled together from the remnants of a failed sci-fi set. It’s with this backdrop that O’Keefe stitches together “Counted With The Dead,” as a grimdark patchwork quilt- equal parts mobster drama, and Frankenstinian fever dream. Wholly original, and darkly humorous, “Counted With The Dead,” is a bloody, genre-bending dystopian… if your idea of a good time involves hitmen and reanimated corpses, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for. Thank you Peter for sending over a copy.
Victor Moravian seems to have found himself in a spot of trouble. A failed businessman, art collector, and now abductee, when hitman, Jack Killeen, raises his weapon to him, you would think that things couldn’t get worse. However, his luck hits rock bottom and keeps digging when he finds himself subject to a series of crude and grotesque experiments conducted by O’Keefe’s resident Dr. Frankenstein Professor Drettmann. Desperate to return to his beloved wife, Marlene, whose affections are also sought by Jack, you can imagine that what’s to come is barbaric, brutal, and as messy as it is entertaining.
Counted With The Dead is a novel that relies heavily on its characters, with Victor in particular being food for thought. Victor, our hapless victim, turned monstrosity, channels the spirit of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” examining the monster through a modern, blood-splattered lens. However, unlike Shelley’s classic, in which Frankenstein is somewhat of a tragic figure, merely seeking acceptance and understanding, Moravian’s rebirth is both a curse, and a twisted resurrection. Professor Drettmann is driven, not simply by scientific curiosity, but also by a perverse and sadistic power trip- somewhat like a snotty child who fries ants using a magnifying glass. The transformation he conducts fuels some interesting commentary- violence is dehumanising, and inevitably cyclical. In a world in which every character is marred by their own grim history, Victor’s metamorphosis is a reminder that the line between man and monster is a blurred one.
The pacing is sublime, and both the Detroit mobster passages, and twisted cyber experiments read well individually. That being said, I found toward the start of the novel that the two didn’t really seem to gel, or compliment one another- it felt like O’Keefe was trying to mix oil and water. Despite this brief clash, both the gritty, character-driven chapters, in which Jack smokes a bunch of weed and listens to his brother lament, and the body-horror-heavy Frankenstinian experiment passages are incredibly enjoyable in their own right. After a few awkward first steps the novel finds its rhythm, the initial discord fades, waltzing straight into a visceral, chaotic, bloodbath of a finale.
In this “Sin City,” x Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” mash-up, Peter O’Keefe delivers something as disturbing as it is entertaining. Whilst it may stumble at first, once it hits its stride, it’s an electrifying, darkly humorous tour-de-force. A rich and grotesque tapestry of the macabre and absurd that examines the underbelly of humanity and beyond, “Counted With The Dead,” is a novel that readers need to find.
Leave a Reply