Is that a great title, or what?

Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead is not crime fiction. It's not even fiction, in fact, though a guide to surviving and investigating a zombie attack is not quite non-fiction either, despite extensive contributions from scientists, law-enforcement personnel, academics and other serious folks.

Author Jonathan Maberry, also a novelist and multiple winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, loves zombies and takes them seriously as entertainment, as metaphor and as guides to the zeitgeist. And he'll be the guest of honor at Noir at the Bar V in November, reading from his novel Patient Zero.

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In the meantime, I am pleased to announce that two of my favorite non-zombies will be in Philadelphia for a special international Noir at the Bar in October. So drop everything and high-tail it to Fergie's Pub on Sansom Street at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 8, to hear and meet John McFetridge, author of Dirty Sweet and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, and Declan Burke, he of The Big O and Eightball Boogie.

What's the big deal about these guys? One has virtually invented a major city as a setting for crime fiction, and the other is author of one of the two or three funniest crime novels ever written. Come meet them, celebrate their new U.S. book releases, and hobnob with them before their appearances at Bouchercon 2008.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008