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When Graveyards Yawn

2002 • 295 pages

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Average rating5

15

I initially read this book almost exactly 10 years ago, at the time I fell in love with Tommy and subsequently both with the noir genre and Mr. Wells Taylor's writing in general. Here's my chaotic take on it now that I read it again:
I initially came across this book in a list of zombie books and while there are unquestionably undead characters in this book it really isn't a classic zombie novel nor would I even call it a different take on the zombie genre, it's one of these books that I consider to be entirely its own thing. There are horror elements, but this is by far more a detection story. It's part of a series but you can absolutely enjoy it as a stand alone story.
It's grim and funny, endearing at times and repulsive at others. The main character has that brand of hopeful cynicism that evokes the unintentional revolutionary who knows that they do not belong in the world they want to create or maybe more precisely in the world they hope will rise from the ashes of the one they will burn down and go down with, his existence seems fleeting even in a world where death has taken a leave of absence something that is oddly relatable in this day and age.
Rereading this I had a realization, thanks to a possibly throwaway line, the odds are that the reason I liked detection stories so much is because a lot the detectives' behaviours are very autistic in nature; pattern recognition, quiet observation, rigid internal moral code and sense of right and wrong (which is not to say that autistic people are inherently good your morals can be rigid without being RIGHT), appearing unfeeling...

August 22, 2022Report this review