murder mystery with zombies and psychics

[gishmilish]

I swear I borrowed this book from my local library, but now I can't find it. The author is male, and it was a paperback, and I imagine that the cover had a typical dark, gritty, urban-looking picture on it, most likely of a person (or persons) in some sort of heavy-duty body armor. Based on where I can remember standing when I found it on the shelf, I strongly suspect that the author's last name is in the first half of the alphabet, but no promises on that. Also, I'm pretty sure it was published really recently-- definitely in the last 3 years.

As for the plot: it's a dark, urban, dystopian future Earth, where there are multiple "tiers" of society. The advantages of being in a top tier are that you make more money and you don't get resurrected as an undead (but still semi-conscious?) slave when you die. If you are a lower tier, you automatically get resurrected, which is no fun at all. You can move from a lower tier to a higher tier by signing up for military service, but this ALSO sucks, because one of the many uses for all the resurrected slaves is as super-soldiers, and they are no fun to fight against.

There are multiple main characters' stories interwoven. One character is a male cop, ex-military. He is tough and smart and has cybernetic implants and has a certain amount of empathy for resurrected people-- especially females.

Another character is a female cop, who is a lower tier, and is thus slated to be resurrected when she dies. She and the ex-military guy have a romantic entanglement, but then she dies, gets resurrected, and the guy is, naturally, a bit put out.

They have both been investigating a series of murders that are entangled with this huge conspiracy that turns out to have to do with a substrain of humans who have psychic powers that allow them to temporarily control and then alter the memories of normal livings humans, but cannot at all control/alter resurrected humans. And when you're resurrected, you can suddenly remember all the true, non-altered memories. But of course, you don't bother to tell the living people, because you're a zombie slave, and conversation betwixt the two is generally unsatisfying for both parties. Hence the conspiracy continues. Except for one scientist who stumbles across the phenomenon when he does a study that compares court transcripts of living people testifying vs. their descriptions of the same events after they've died and been resurrected, and sometimes they don't match up. But he can't explain why, and nobody listens to him anyways, 'cuz he's a crackpot scientist, and of course the psychic conspiracy people have no interest in allowing his studies to get out.

Also, there's a totally messed up female character who has psychic powers but isn't part of the conspiracy, and mostly just gets drunk a lot of the time.

AND there's a female wrestling champion who's pretty great and manages to get mixed up in the action.

And it's action-packed with lots of explosions and daring escapes and zombie armies taking over the city and cool sci-fi technology and whatnot.

BUT it's totally hard to find, because of course, the author is too cool to call the resurrected people just "zombies" or the psychic people just "psychics", and I can't remember what he does call them, so searching for it has just been nigh-impossible.

Any help, and I will be you zombie slave for life! (afterlife? whatever.... ;)

[Metryq]

The description is not ringing any bells, but you might want to read Robert Sheckley's classic Immortality, Inc. (Forget any paperback covers that say the movie Freejack was based on this book. No resemblance.)

[gishmilish]

Definitely not what I'm looking for, but I'll keep an eye out for it! Thanks!

[ashewyntr]

I haven't read the series, but could it be John Meaney's Tristopolis series? Starts with Bone Song.

[gishmilish]

I definitely thought for a bit that it might be the Meaney series, too, but I took a peek at it at the library, and that's definitely not it. The plot is indeed similar, but it seems like the difference is that Meaney is coming at things from a magical/fantastical POV, whereas the book I'm looking for is all laid out on a foundation of science (cybernetics, biotechnology, neurology...)
Also, the writing styles are different: from the bits of Bone Song that I've peeked at, Meaney has a more lush, romantic tone when he describes things, but the mystery author's tone was more straightforward and gritty-- not quite noir, but definitely coming from that side of the street.

Thanks for the very apt suggestion, though!

[gishmilish]

After ages of trolling the library shelves, gettin' a crick in my neck from reading all the sideways titles, I finally found it! In the FANTASY section, for crissakes. Sheesh. It's State of Decay by James Knapp. (I'm sure this a load off everyone's minds.

Thanks for everyone who responded!

--meg