In the distant Heracles system, at the edge of explored space, the last remaining crew of the infamous pirate ship Crimson Star have found themselves trapped. Civil war has broken out, and the jumpgates that supply interstellar travel have been shut down to all but official traffic.

Their leader, ex-professor of mathematics, Tybalt, is desperate to escape the system and attempt an experimental cure for the degenerative nervous condition that got him fired in the first place.

Their pilot, former mobster, Staff, clings to the hope that he can reconstitute the pirate fleet and return them to their former glory.

Their surgeon, the ascetic psychic, Tamora, has grown disillusioned with their lifestyle and wants to return home to her monastery and to her simple life of meditation.

Their enforcer, retired military AI robot, Nicodemus, could only find employment as a janitor after retiring . . . until a law enforcement agent approached him about using his military skills to infiltrate and take down an infamous pirate group.

They are the last of the Crimson Star pirates. And they are pursued by the legendary lawman Neil Tesso, whose decades of service are liberally sprinkled with stunning victories. With the increased pirate activity in Tesso’s home system, as well as the civil war, the Core government on old Earth is threatening martial law. Desperate to avert the arrival of the insidious Inquisitors and the suffering that follows like a plague, Tesso pursues the pirates with zealous vigor.

Together in one volume, two frighteningly hilarious Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. adventures!

Slimy Underbelly

There’s something fishy going on in the Unnatural Quarter. Bodies are floating face-down, the plumbing is backing up, and something smells rotten—even to a zombie detective like Dan Shamble. Diving into the slimy underbelly of a diabolical plot, Dan comes face-to-tentacles with an amphibious villain named Ah’Chulhu (to which the usual response is “Gesundheit!”). With his snap-happy gang of gator-guys—former pets flushed down the toilet—Ah’Chulhu wreaks havoc beneath the streets. While feuding weather wizards kick up storms and a gang of thieving lawn gnomes continues their reign of terror, Dan Shamble is running out of time—before the whole stinking city goes down the drain. . . .

Tastes Like Chicken

Shamble faces his most fowl case yet, when a flock of murderous feral chickens terrorizes the Unnatural Quarter. Also in the caseload, Shamble deals with the sinister spokesman for Monster Chow Industries, a spreading contamination that drives vampires berserk, a serial-killer demon from the Fifth Pit of Hell, a black-market blood gang led by the nefarious Ma Hemoglobin, a ghost fighting a hostile takeover of his blood bars . . . and a cute little vampire girl who may, or may not, be his daughter.

With his ghost girlfriend Sheyenne, his bleeding-heart lawyer partner Robin, and his Best Human Friend Officer Toby McGoohan, Dan Shamble is back from the dead and back on the case. The feathers will fly as he goes face-to-beak with the evil peckers.

In an alternate world where real magic exists, its practitioners are hunted down by police officers called M-forcers. But some groups are fighting back!

Callum McGuire is a new M-forcer who once worked the quiet streets of London. As an orphan, Callum has been brought up to believe that all magic is evil, but the more he sees of the M-forcers’ cruel methods (implemented by General Nero Stark and his second-in-command Sherman Pryce), the more he begins to question whether or not they are right.

And when he unwittingly encounters a member of the rebel group called Arcana, he’s introduced to their world and realizes that nothing will ever be the same again.

Join award-winning and bestselling author Paul Kane (the sell-out phenomenon Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, the Hooded Man series, and the bestselling Before) as he shows you a kind of magic you’ve never seen. . . .