Carrion

Novel by Gary Brandner (USA) 1986.

McAllister Fain is a smalltime occultist who mostly does tarot readings for old women, telling them what they want to hear. He then gets an offer to bring a millionaire's wife back from the dead. He knows he can't do it, but accepts with the intention of putting on a show and claiming the fee for just trying. Unfortunately, he succeeds. He then has to cope with the hassles of being a star and, later on, the problems of being pursued by the people he's brought back to life, who turn out to be literally soulless zombies who only want to die, taking their saviour in the process.

Gary Brandner wrote a few books about the walking dead, the horror-adventure of Quintana Roo being the best. But it was the style, characterisation and pace that made that book, whereas this one makes it on the ideas. A lot of the book is concerned with the problems of making it big; Fain is strictly smalltime and hasn't a clue how to handle himself with his life suddenly crowded by cranks, newspapermen and agents with image specialists in tow. Brandner handles all this quite superbly and conjures up a wealth of emotions in the reader, ranging from disgust through pity to sympathy at different points in Fain's rise and fall. Not his best, but still well worth the effort.