Dead Boys

"If China Miéville, Neil Gaiman and Hunter S. Thompson had a ménage à trois, Dead Boys would be the lovechild. A cracking book" (Jay Kristoff, New York Times–bestselling author of Darkdawn).

A decade dead, Jacob Campbell is a preservationist, providing a kind of taxidermy to keep his clients looking lifelike for as long as the forces of entropy will allow. But he's willing to leave behind his career, his home, and his fortune to find the man who cheated the rules of life and death entirely.

According to legend, the Living Man is the only adventurer to ever cross into the underworld without dying first. It's rumored he met his end somewhere in the labyrinth of pubs beneath Dead City's streets, disappearing without a trace.

Accompanying Jacob on his quest are the boy Remington, an innocent with mysterious powers over the bones of the dead, and the hanged man Leopold l'Eclair, a flamboyant rogue whose criminal ambitions spark the undesired attention of a shadowy ruler. Together, they embark on a perilous journey through an underworld where the only certainty is decay.

"Squailia's super-charged prose swings from bone-crunching action to meditations on the meaning of life and the mysteries of death. It's an exuberant mashup." —Brendan Mathews, author of The World of Tomorrow

"Squailia's characterizations are refreshing . . . A novel that pleads to be made into a macabre stop-motion animation." —The Guardian, "Top 10 Books About the Afterlife"

"Exquisite worldbuilding alongside a mix of humor and philosophy . . . This underworld is a fascinating city." —Publishers Weekly