The Generation Killer

The supernatural has always worked well with noir as they are both genres of the night. It is only an undead hop and skip between a detective finding a corpse in the alley and that corpse waking up. Conan Doyle walked the line between the supernatural and the super-real, Holmes always discovered that the mystery was more manmade than on first sight. But what if it was not? Who can solve crimes against the dead better than the dead themselves? In Adam Simcox’s The Generation Killer, the Dying Squad may just be the best team to stop a serial killer from sending more souls their way. 

After the events of The Dying Squad, Detective Joe Lazarus has finally found a place for himself. Being a detective in an agency for the dead may have not been what he intended, but it is a great way to clean his soul after years of being a corrupt cop. He is going to need the help of his former partner Daisy-May, as they are coming up against some pure evil. A serial killer is poisoning the oldest and youngest in a family. If that were not enough to deal with, someone is killing the citizens of the underworld and there is a guerrilla army of the undead on the upside who are trying to break the laws between the living and the dead. A typical week for the Dying Squad then. 

Joe is a gritty cop trying to make up for his past, so he fits into crime noir perfectly. Manchester above and beyond is also a perfect city for the genre with its looming buildings, history, and penchant for rain. Generation is a great crime noir about cops trying to capture a serial killer, but it is also full of supernatural ideas.  

The story is split into three, Joe and his new partner are sent upside to investigate the killer, Daisy-May stays below to investigate more local matters, whilst the Duchess has the most important mission of all, stopping her sister from destroying the world. All three stories run parallel, and it is not until the conclusion that you start to see if they are connected or not. 

You can read the book for the crime aspects or the supernatural, both are treated well. The story of the serial killer is dark and twisted. It reads like any other dark novel, but in this case it may be supernatural. We learn more about the underworld in this outing and the consequences of the first book. The world building has really been established and you feel there is a solid base for further investigations in the series. 

I enjoyed Generation as both a slice of dark urban fantasy, but also as a slice of dark crime. A mystery is always a terrific way to develop characters, relationships, and structure. Simcox does not only do this once, but across three separate narratives. I would recommend this to urban fantasy lovers as it is squarely in that genre, but there is enough of a mystery here for crime fans to enjoy too.