Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series

## Genre Information

Urban Fantasy
Detective

Zombie
Humor

 (Series Content Ratings Click on Explicit Ratings for details.)

## About the Series

* **Genres:** Urban Fantasy / Humor / Horror-Detective mash-up
* **Theme:** A Zombie P.I. that doesn't stop working even though he is dead.
* **Narrative style**:

## Series Description

"A dead detective, a wimpy vampire, and other interesting characters from the supernatural side of the street make DEATH WARMED OVER an unpredictable walk on the weird side. Prepare to be entertained." ~ Charlaine Harris

Ever since "The Big Uneasy" unleashed vampires, werewolves, and other undead denizens on the world, it’s been hell being a detective—especially for zombie P.I. Dan Chambeaux. Taking on the creepiest of cases in the Unnatural Quarter with a human lawyer for a partner and a ghost for a girlfriend, Chambeaux redefines “dead on arrival.” But just because he was murdered doesn’t mean he’d leave his clients in the lurch. Besides, zombies are so good at lurching.

Now he’s back from the dead and back in business—with a case load that’s downright unnatural. A resurrected mummy is suing the museum that put him on display. Two witches, victims of a curse gone terribly wrong, seek restitution from a publisher for not using “spell check” on its magical tomes. And he’s got to figure out a very personal question—Who killed him?

## Books in Series

1. Death Warmed over (2012)
2. Unnatural Acts (2012)
3. Hair Raising (2013)
4. Slimy Underbelly (2014)
5. Working Stiff: The Cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. (2015)
6. Tastes Like Chicken (Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. Book 6) (2017)
7. Services Rendered: The Cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. (2018)

#### Shorts, Novellas, Anthologies

* 1.5. Stakeout at the Vampire Circus (2013)
* 2.5. Road Kill (2013)
* 3.5. Naughty and Nice (2013)

## World Building

### Fantasy Elements

Zombie P.I., vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, witches, magical tomes, goblins, ghouls, monsters, poltergeist, mummy, golems, necromancers, mummified madame, mixed-race couple (vampire–werewolf), Goblin, Goblin Tavern, necro-maniac, voodoo tattoo artists, lycanthrope, cockatrice fights, gator-guys, weather wizards, gnomes, curse, werewolf gang war,

### World

In this zombie-spoof series set in an alternate New Orleans, life has changed drastically since the Big Uneasy occurred ten years ago. Here's what happened: "The original copy of the Necronomicon had inadvertently been left out under the light of a full moon, and a virgin woman...had cut her finger...and spilled blood on the pages—which activated some buried spell and caused a fundamental shift in the natural order of things, unleashing ghosts and goblins, vampires and werewolves, zombies, ghouls, and all manner of monsters. Even the previously existing ones had come out of the closet. The Big Uneasy...the world had been dealing with the repercussions ever since." (Death Warmed Over, p. 153)

Instead of the French Quarter, natural (human) tourists in New Orleans stream into the Unnatural Quarter to get a look at the bizarre community of supernatural beings who live there. In this world, one in 75 dead people returns as a zombie, while one in 30 returns as a ghost. For unknown reasons, murder and suicide victims are more likely to return than those who die of natural or accidental causes.

After the Big Uneasy, new laws and regulations had to be put in place to handle a multitude of exigencies. For example,"New rules required quick-release latches on the insides of tombs..., so the undead can conveniently get back out. Some people were even buried with their cell phones, though I doubted they'd get good service from inside. Can you hear me now?" (Death Warmed Over, p5) New products were developed specifically for unnatural customers, including seasonings that make chicken "taste just like human," cosmetics to brighten up zombie-gray or vampire-pale skin, and deodorants to mask zombie-rot body odors.

### Protagonist

Dan Chambeaux
The series hero, Dan Chambeaux, was a human private investigator in New Orleans for a long time, but now he's a newbie zombie, having been shot in the head in a dark alley just a month ago. As the series opens, his own murder is at the top of his case list, closely followed by that of his girlfriend, Sheyenne, who returned from her death (by toadstool poisoning) as a ghost—specifically, a poltergeist. Poltergeists can touch physical objects, but not people, so Sheyenne can hold down her job as Dan's assistant, but she can't touch Dan, which has put a serious damper on their love life. Dan laments that "Sheyenne is beautiful, blond, and intangible." ("Stakeout at the Zombie Circus")
Dan has always been self confidant in a naively arrogant sort of way, and death and zombification haven't changed that aspect of his personality: "Even undead, I remain as handsome as ever, with the exception of the [two] holes left by the bullet....Fortunately, a low-slouched fedora covers the big hole." (Death Warmed Over, p. 3) Dan has never acquired a taste for brains, and he's very careful about his personal hygiene, which can be a major problem for most zombies. Since Dan became a zombie, people have begun calling him "Shamble" instead of "Chambeaux." In fact, his business—Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations—has been nicknamed "Shamble & Die." Dan's partner is Robin Deyer, a young, soft-hearted, human attorney who is determined to provide justice to all unnaturals. Both of the partners are workaholics, with Dan's long-time mantra being "The cases don't solve themselves."
Dan's BHF (Best Human Friend) is Officer Toby McGoohan, the beat cop for the Unnatural Quarter. McGoohan's defining characteristic is his constant telling of really bad, non-PC jokes about unnaturals. For example, "What goes 'Ha-ha-ha...plop?'...A shambler laughing his head off." (p. 30)
## Book Descriptions

1. Death Warmed over (2012)
Death Warmed Over is a laugh-out-loud horror novel about a zombie private investigator and a bleeding-heart human lawyer tackling an unnatural caseload. Ever since the Big Uneasy, the dead are coming back to 'life' and have a bone to pick with the living—a skittish vampire who believes he's being stalked by straight edge predators armed with stakes; a mummy fighting the museum that has encased him for thousands of years for wrongful imprisonment; two witches suing a publisher because of a typo in a spell-book that caused a spell to go horribly wrong. All the while trying to figure out who murdered zombie P.I. Dan Chambeaux and his former lounge-singer-turned-ghost girlfriend.
2. Unnatural Acts (2012)
To Be Dead Or Not To Be Dead. In the Unnatural Quarter, golems slave away in sweatshops, necromancers sell black-market trinkets to tourists, and the dead rise up—to work the night shift. But zombie detective Dan Shamble is no ordinary working stiff. When a local senator and his goons picket a ghostly production of Shakespeare in the Dark—condemning the troupe’s “unnatural” lifestyles—Dan smells something rotten. And if something smells rotten to a zombie, you’re in serious trouble…
Before his way of life, er, death, is destroyed, Dan wants answers. Along the way he needs to provide security for a mummified madame, defend a mixed-race couple (he’s a vampire, she’s a werewolf) from housing discrimination, and save his favorite watering hole, the Goblin Tavern, from drying up. Throw in a hairy hitman, a necro-maniac, and a bank robber who walks through walls, and Dan Shamble’s plate is full. Maybe this time, the zombie detective has bitten off more than he can chew…
3. Hair Raising (2013)
The fur really flies when a serial scalper stalks the supernatural citizens of the Unnatural Quarter, targeting werewolves—and what’s sadder than a chrome-domed lycanthrope? Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble is on the case, trying to stop an all-out gang war between full-time and full-moon werewolves. As he combs through the tangled clues to hunt down the bald facts, things get hairy fast.
Shamble lurches through a loony landscape of voodoo tattoo artists, illicit cockatrice fights, body builders assembling make-your-own-human kits, and perhaps scariest of all, crazed fans in town for the Worldwide Horror Convention. Yet the reign of hair-raising terror grows longer. If Shamble can't snip this off at the roots, the whole world could end up howling mad.
4. Slimy Underbelly (2014)
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…
5. Working Stiff
The Cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. (2015) :Back from the dead…and back on the case!
Even being murdered doesn’t keep a good detective down, and in the Unnatural Quarter—inhabited by ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies, and all sorts of creatures that go bump (or thud!) in the night—a zombie P.I. fits right in. Dan Chambeaux, a.k.a. “Shamble,” solves a string of madcap cases with his ghost girlfriend Sheyenne, his Best Human Friend Officer Toby McGoohan, and his firebrand lawyer partner Robin Deyer.
Working Stiff contains seven cases from the files of Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations. Dan Shamble has to solve the mystery of a stolen deck of fortune-telling cards and the undeath-defying feats of a vampire trapeze artist, finds himself sealed in a coffin in the back of a truck with no idea where he’s being taken, and is even hired by Santa Claus to find his lost “naughty and nice” list. Being trapped in an unbreakable monster-proof crypt, deciphering a string of mysterious zombie graffiti, investigating the murder of a costumed fan at a science fiction convention where the monsters are the normal attendees, or tracking down a kidnapped hellhound for legendary vigilante werewolf cop Hairy Harry—it’s all in a day’s work for Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.
6. Tastes Like Chicken (Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. Book 6) (2017)
Dan Shamble, zombie P.I. faces his most fowl case yet, when a flock of murderous feral chickens terrorizes the Unnatural Quarter. Also in the caseload, Dan 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.
Includes the short story Road Kill.
7. Services Rendered
The Cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. (2018) :Dan Chambeaux was a human private investigator in the Unnatural Quarter, where all the monsters have gathered in hopes of finding normal lives. Even though he was killed in a back alley when a case went sour, Dan “Shamble” is still on the case. Even death won’t keep a good detective down.
Now, teamed up with his partner Robin Deyer, a bleeding-heart human lawyer who wants justice for all monsters, his ghost girlfriend Sheyenne, and his BHF (Best Human Friend) Officer Toby McGoohan, Shamble solves a host of bizarre mysteries involving Mayan sacrificial Christmas turkeys, a headless man who is sure his head has been kidnapped, a book collector who finds deadly curses instead of valuable autographs, a medusa who battles stringent beauty contest rules, a vengeful poltergeist who won’t obey a restraining order, an infernal monster cooking contest, and more!
In these nine cases—two original to this collection!—Dan Shamble puts the P.I. back into R.I.P.
## References

1. ↑ Death Warmed over FantasticFiction
2. ↑ Fang-tastic