Necropolis by Michael Dempsey

Mahoning Valley native Michael Dempsey's first novel, Necropolis, is a swinging good time. It's a genre mixing sci-fi noir crime novel that follows life, death and ressurection of police detective Paul Donner. In this debut novel, Donner is killed in a botched hold up at a bodega and revived 40 years later thanks to an event called "the Shift". Donner finds himself unwanted in a world where noir is back in style and among people who dislike revived persons. New York is quarantined under a dome and the land surrounding it, the blasted heath, is uninhabitable. Donner is also "youthing" or aging backwards, another result of the Shift.

In fantastic noirish convention Dempsey fashions a full cast of characters to support the story as Donner begins to investigate his own unsolved murder. His prose is smooth and fleshes out a fully formed retro-futuristic world for his characters to inhabit. This is an engrossing, fun story that hooks the reader. Whether you are a sci-fi fan, a mystery fan or someone who lovers the noir mysteries of the old pulps, this book satisfies your interest.