My Loaded Gun, My Lonely Heart

"This emotionally charged genre-buster serves up more than a few good punches and won’t disappoint fans of dark fantasy laced with pitch-black humor." —Publishers Weekly

Vitus Adamson has a second chance at life now that he’s no longer a zombie. But after killing his brother Jamie, Vitus lands in prison on murder charges. Jamie’s death exposes secret government projects so deep in the black they cannot be seen—without Vitus, that is.

Sprung from jail, the government hires Vitus to clean up Jamie’s messes, but tracking down his brother’s homemade monsters gone rogue is easier said than done. The first of them is a convicted killer assumed to be safely behind bars. However, it appears he is still committing murder through his victim’s dreams. High on Atroxipine—the drug that once kept him functioning among the living—and lapsing into addiction, Vitus’s grip on reality takes a nasty turn when his own dreams begin slipping sideways.

Vitus’s problems multiply as he deals with his failed friendship with wheelchair-bound officer Geoff Lafferty, his wrecked romance with the town mortician Niko, government agents working for his father, sinister figures lurking in the shadows, and, least of all, the complications of learning how to be human again.

Secret agents, conspiracy theories, broken hearts and lonely souls, the siren song of prescription drugs . . . in My Loaded Gun, My Lonely Heart, readers are invited to discover life after undeath, where there are no happy endings.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Martin Rose writes a range of fiction from the fantastic to the macabre. Recent short work appears in anthologies such as Urban Green Man and Handsome Devil. He is also the author of Bring Me Flesh, I’ll Bring Hell. He resides in Toms River, New Jersey.

"Zombie noir done right. Night of the Living Dead meets Sam Spade, with a dash of To Have and Have Not thrown in for good measure. Martin Rose navigates the curves, melodic standards and complex gray areas of his genre with equal parts aplomb and a kind of retro muscular prose. Recommended." —Jamie Mason, author of The Book of Ashes

"With Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell, Martin Rose mashed genres together to produce what may well be the definitive zombie P.I. noir. In his equally nihilistic yet enjoyable sequel, My Loaded Gun, My Lonely Heart, we catch up with hapless antihero Vitus Adamson, no longer trapped in a rotting corpse-body yet still addicted to the drug which once kept him reanimated, as he plunges face-first into a nested set of conspiracies crossbreeding occult shenanigans with corporate/governmental dirty tricks. The result pulls you downwards at a reckless, heart-hammering pace, only to rifle your emotional wallet and dump you nowhere good: a pitch-black cocktail equally mixed from human and inhuman evil, no chaser, whose hangover packs a truly lethal punch." —Gemma Files, author of the Hexslinger series

"Hard-boiled mayhem and government conspiracies drive Rose’s noir-infused sequel to Bring Me Flesh, I’ll Bring Hell. Former pre-deceased (aka zombie) Vitus Adamson, now wearing the body of his nephew, has just been sprung from jail after serving only six months for the murder of his brother, Jamie, the man who made him a zombie. His rescuer is Lionel Valens, who has ties to Vitus’s father. Lionel wants Vitus to clean up some of Jamie’s loose ends and track a killer who may be using dreams for his deadly work. However, Vitus is battling an addiction to atroxipine, the drug that kept him from going feral in his zombie days, and he doesn’t know whom to trust, especially with mute, creepy Elvedina assigned by Lionel to look over his shoulder. Vitus’s tragic past and newfound humanity make him a compelling figure, and his wry narration, given to moments of self-loathing and snark, at times reads like a fever dream shot through with startling moments of sanity. This emotionally charged genre-buster serves up more than a few good punches and won’t disappoint fans of dark fantasy laced with pitch-black humor." —Publisher's Weekly