"The man who wears the names of rivers knows that he is no longer like other men, that some part of his fearful work has changed him forever and he can never return to the simple, painless life he lived before.... The invaders are everywhere, and Their agents are everywhere.... In [his] dreams They walk the streets without fear, spreading the androgyne contagion, and the sky burns with the roaring engines of Their warships."

In a novel about a serial killer, the evocation of the killer's madness can make or break the book. In The Crow: The Lazarus Heart, Poppy Z. Brite delivers her usual complement of gay/transsexual pale-faced lovelies dressed in black Lycra and lace, giving just enough of a spin to their aesthetics that they are mildly entertaining to read about. But the way she puts the good gory meat into the story is through the character of a mesmerizing serial killer whose unique brand of paranoia serves as a sly commentary on Brite's own fiction. This is a short and relatively simple novel for Brite, but its narrative momentum never lapses: the plot structure hangs together better than in her longer, more ambitious works. It's overwritten in places--Brite wants to use two similes where one will do--but it's fun. And that's what horror is all about.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Five, four, three, two...Jared Poe counts the days on Louisiana's Death Row. The controversial S&M photographer has been condemned to die for killing his lover. He doesn't know who did it. Only that he didn't. Can he clear his name and find the real killer in time? No. For this is no ordinary thriller. We are in the dark realm of The Crow, and Jared must feel the cold shudder of Death; must hear the beating of black wings; must prowl the shadowy goth netherworld of New Orleans, to prove he was no killer when he died. And find out what kind of killer he has become.

FROM THE CRITICS

A Guran - darkecho.com

James O'Barr's Crow mythos is, of course, an extension of primal myths and the core unoriginal idea that "love never dies." But, it's become a potent one in the last few years, even surviving a disastrous second film built on the franchise. And why not? Such myths are ingrained in us and speak to us any time they are skillfully re-told. The Crow gives a writer ample room to create -- the bird is a supernatural messenger/guide that returns a soul from the dead to seek justice. The spirit is invulnerable only so long as it pursues those specifically responsible for the disquietude. This element, along with a strong theme of romance, allows our dead anti-hero to become vulnerable and elicit even more reader sympathy.

HarperPrism has launched a series based on The Crow (tm) with books by David Bischoff, Chet Williamson, and Poppy Z. Brite. The series may work better than most tie-ins simply because authors aren't confined by preconceived characters. If Bischoff and Williamson, both good writers, have served up novels of the quality of Brite's The Lazarus Heart, then it doesn't matter what you think of the trademark -- this is a vivid, passionate, entertaining dark fiction to be appreciated on its own merits.

Although less complex than her other novels, The Lazarus Heart, still has some interesting levels. It pokes at societal hypocrisy and offers some sociopolitical bite with a serial killer whose madness -- a paranoiac fear of the androgyne, the transgendered, the transsexual, and the homosexual, who he knows are Alien invaders spreading contagion -- is repellent, fascinating, and all too believable. The "good" guys here are gay/transgendered, artistic, slightly decadent denizens of that most decadent of U. S. cities, New Orleans. There's also a closeted gay cop who introduces an element of noir grit and tough guy angst to the mix.

It's tightly plotted, well-crafted and yes, it's romantic, melodramatic, visceral, violent, and sometimes over-the-top. We get buckets, heck, fountains of blood and body parts; true love (but no explicit sex,) self-sacrifice, a hurricane, a dodo, black lace and latex, interesting interior decoration, Edgar Allan Poe (c'mon who could resist tying The Raven to The Crow?), a hurricane named Michael, a pretty damned unhelpful crow, characters who read Clive Barker and Caitlin Kiernan, we even get Brite finally writing a female character -- well, okay, so the character USED to be a male. There's an insouciance to The Lazarus Heart that is delightful, yet it's poignant as well. As protagonist Jared Poe says, "Get a clue, babe. Haven't you looked in a mirror lately? We're all monsters."