Skid Roche

New Zelazny Book: The Dead Man’s Brother

Originally uploaded by Thomas Roche

If Roger Zelazny’s best science fiction and fantasy novels are strikingly Chandlerian, was there ever a Zelaznyesque crime novel? Not until the surfacing of The Dead Man’s Brother, a “lost” manuscript, probably written in 1970 or 1971. That’s when Zelazny was at the height of his powers, the same general era that bore a long string of excellent science fiction novels and some stunningly innovative fantasies like Jack of Shadows, probably my very favorite Zelazny book. The Dead Man’s Brother was discovered recently by Zelazny’s agent Kirby McCauley, and somehow ended up with Hard Case Crime — the perfect home for it.

The novel is about an art-thief-turned-art-dealer who gets mixed up in a plot involving the CIA, the Vatican, and a rebel movement in the jungles of Brazil. Does it work? Hell’s bells, does it work! The Dead Man’s Brother is a fast-paced, gorgeous piece of crime fiction that would have fit as easily beneath the pulp cover Hard Case put on it or the weird photo-covers they put on mainstream international thrillers in those days. And wherever it had gone, it would have been rhapsodic fucking poetry, cover to cover, and that’s what it is today. If crime is your poison, this is one of the best.

Trent Zelazny, the Z-man’s son, speculates in his afterword that his father did not plan the book as his “breakthrough,” but rather just wrote what was in his brain. He says that at the time it was (probably) written, Zelazny was reading a lot of crime fiction, so it makes sense he would have headed this direction. I do think this thing would have fit well as one of those paperbacks my very educated and erudite grandfather used to read — with a cover featuring photo of a Beretta .25, a Brazillian coin, an Italian passport and a lady’s lipstick case. But it fits even better right here where it is.

Regardless of whether you give a damn about science fiction or Roger Zelazny, if you appreciate a crime thriller, grab it.