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Counted With the Dead
Counted With the Dead reimagines the Frankenstein myth set in the racial cauldron of late 90’s Detroit. A reformed hit man navigates Detroit’s bitter racial divisions while tracking the vengeful beast created from the corpses of his victims. He struggles to protect his family, destroy the monster and somehow achieve absolution for his crimes.
342 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 4, 2025
If Goodfellas and Frankenstein had a baby, it would resemble this book!
Jack Killeen is a hitman and has decided the killing of Victor Moravian will be his last hit. Turns out Victor is with a woman Jack has long desired, Marlene. Jack and Marlene have history, but now Jack IS history, and she moves on with Victor. As Jack pulls off what he hopes will be the last hit of his career, things go terribly wrong. Victor is not dead, you see, and in fact, he is about to start a whole new reality. What happens to Victor as he clings to life? Will this really be Jack's last job? You'll have to read this to find out!
I went into this with some skepticism, I'll admit, but I was immediately drawn in by the sharpness and quality of the prose. It's obvious that this is not Mr. O'Keefe's first rodeo, this man can write. He's not too wordy, keeping the prose whip-smart and the story moving.
This tale takes place in what is left of Detroit, that being- not much. The reader is set down in the midst of severe urban decay, where skyscrapers and other mammoth buildings are now empty and overgrown. The citizens left here are those that are struggling to get by in daily life. Nothing has been easy for any of the residents, crime runs rampant and decent jobs are hard to come by. There are still cops that remain, trying to do their jobs and as always...where poverty and drugs reign, so does organized crime. The story here mostly lives between Victor, jack and Jack's brother Marty, but the mob is an integral part of the story, at the very least as the catalyst for all the events that follow.
This story moved from scene to scene, it felt like, and as such it unspooled in my mind like a film. O'Keefe's writing is descriptive and tight, creating vivid imagery while dragging the reader along, whether or not they want to see what happens next.
I was surprised by the denouement, and didn't expect the story to go that way at all, but looking back, I think it was near perfect and I should have seen it coming. With nods to the classic Frankenstein, but modernized, criminalized and completely his own, I think Mr. O'Keefe's work here is noteworthy and as such, I highly recommend Counted With the Dead!
*I bought this book with my hard earned cash.*
Jack Killeen is a hitman and has decided the killing of Victor Moravian will be his last hit. Turns out Victor is with a woman Jack has long desired, Marlene. Jack and Marlene have history, but now Jack IS history, and she moves on with Victor. As Jack pulls off what he hopes will be the last hit of his career, things go terribly wrong. Victor is not dead, you see, and in fact, he is about to start a whole new reality. What happens to Victor as he clings to life? Will this really be Jack's last job? You'll have to read this to find out!
I went into this with some skepticism, I'll admit, but I was immediately drawn in by the sharpness and quality of the prose. It's obvious that this is not Mr. O'Keefe's first rodeo, this man can write. He's not too wordy, keeping the prose whip-smart and the story moving.
This tale takes place in what is left of Detroit, that being- not much. The reader is set down in the midst of severe urban decay, where skyscrapers and other mammoth buildings are now empty and overgrown. The citizens left here are those that are struggling to get by in daily life. Nothing has been easy for any of the residents, crime runs rampant and decent jobs are hard to come by. There are still cops that remain, trying to do their jobs and as always...where poverty and drugs reign, so does organized crime. The story here mostly lives between Victor, jack and Jack's brother Marty, but the mob is an integral part of the story, at the very least as the catalyst for all the events that follow.
This story moved from scene to scene, it felt like, and as such it unspooled in my mind like a film. O'Keefe's writing is descriptive and tight, creating vivid imagery while dragging the reader along, whether or not they want to see what happens next.
I was surprised by the denouement, and didn't expect the story to go that way at all, but looking back, I think it was near perfect and I should have seen it coming. With nods to the classic Frankenstein, but modernized, criminalized and completely his own, I think Mr. O'Keefe's work here is noteworthy and as such, I highly recommend Counted With the Dead!
*I bought this book with my hard earned cash.*
March 12, 2025
Full review at Happy Goat Horror:
https://happygoathorror.com/2025/03/1...
A contemporary, detailed partial retelling of Frankenstein and an overall great time with plenty of terror, action, and high stakes.
https://happygoathorror.com/2025/03/1...
A contemporary, detailed partial retelling of Frankenstein and an overall great time with plenty of terror, action, and high stakes.
June 3, 2024
First, I would like to say I received this book as an ARC copy from Grendel Press. This in no way influenced my review, and I think you’ll discover that. When the opportunity came up, I took it since academic commitments had shelved my reading, so a review on short notice would actually require me to finish something instead of picking away at it.
This is another book with an interesting author story, but unlike F. Gardner, the writer Peter O’Keefe, has experienced professional success. He’s credited as a writer for Romero’s Tales from the Darkside. A show I vaguely remember catching reruns of in the nineties; a show as old as me. I was interested. There is more around the book I don’t fully understand, such as a hundred-page version written by O’Keefe released ten or so years ago, that might be an un-optioned manuscript version of the novel. I have some questions about how the current book came to be.
Counted With the Dead is a strange book. It’s billed as horror but is more of a mobster drama and period piece with a creature element.
O’Keefe takes his own at-bat on Frankenstein, but with a love triangle element. It’s set in Detroit. Also, there are mobsters, and it’s also the Bride of Frankenstein, but not really.
There are three protagonists. Jack Killeen, a hitman often accompanied by his brother, Marty, to do wetwork. Victor Moravian, a flailing businessman and art collector, that ultimately finds himself in the role of Frankenstein after a mortal run-in with Jack and a subsequent collection by O’Keefe’s Dr. Frankenstein. And finally, Marlene, the love interest of the two. There’s also our proverbial Dr. Frankenstein, Professor Drettmann, and his Igor-like assistant, DeRon, the mobsters Pompey, and Magoo, and others, and Jack’s ex-wife and precocious upstart teenager, and sassy black cop lady, and a few other people that get tied up into the proceedings. It’s a genre-bending piece of ingenuity that you have to admire.
The pacing is good and the book opens with Victor’s execution and quickly to the complications with Drettmann and DeRon, while Jack struggles with the mobsters, and Marlene often pines about the past. The reader is saddled with character work as exposition and flashbacks that lay the groundwork before we approach the play, and the characters are indeed the book’s strength, along with O’Keefe’s fascination with Detroit, or perhaps its protracted destruction.
After about a dozen brief chapters, the book finds its legs and becomes a series of events based around the fallout of Victor’s transformation, his attempts to get back to Marlene, and weed-smoking Jack navigating through the chaos while being hounded by mobsters and cops. There’s no need to discuss the plot much further than that without spoilers. Between the three primary characters, there is a handful of chapters devoted to DeRon, and his developing crisis in dealing with his work under the barbarous Dr. Drettmann.
We’ll touch on style a bit since the plot mostly works for me.
O’Keefe is at his best when he is narrating action or having a strong character moment. Action is violent, visceral, and occasionally comedic in a delightful way. All the Detroit mobster characters, Marty, Jack, and Marlene, they’re all believable as these sort of foul-mouthed ne’er-do-wells in 90’s Detroit, not that I’ve been, but frankly, it reminds me of the horrific Dartmouth gentry.
I would even say dialogue would be good if it wasn’t for almost every piece of dialogue requiring noun-verb action tags. It didn’t work for me and stuck out like a sore thumb. Exchanges often parse out like this:
DeRon is stunned. “Debridement?” He forces a smile, hoping, against all evidence, that the Professor is making a joke. “What were you going to do?”
Drettmann is not smiling. “I determined that the only remaining option was larval therapy.”
DeRon can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Maggots? Your solution…” He waves his arm in the direction of Jefferson Boulevard. “Your solution to all this was maggots?”
A big chunk of the book is like this, and it may hamper your enjoyment of this book. There are a few other small things. Double punctuation. Some minor typos (trolling used instead of trawling). Small fish.
Characters are indeed complex and lifelike. Despite this, it’s hard to say who the reader is supposed to root for. Jack gets the most page time, but he wouldn’t be out of place riding with John Joel Glanton and the Judge, collecting scalps in the south. He’s unpleasant, murderous, and not above threatening dogs and old ladies, yet he never really threatens the reader. Perhaps he’s in line with the Author’s vision of a Detroit hitman. For me, it’s hard to tell where he sidles in between an anti-hero, villain protagonist, or just plain villain.
The hard-boiled drama is in stark contrast with the Frankensteinian elements that are so different, you might get whiplash. There is a certain amusement in that, perhaps. I often chuckled at it. I’m not sure if that was O’Keefe’s intent or not. There’s a brief chapter, I won’t describe it, but it made the entire book worth it. All I will say is that it’s a kill reminiscent of a certain scene in Friday the 13th: New Blood. It was horrible, short, and hilarious.
The Frankenstein bits offer a pleasant change of pace and tone, even if it’s a little silly amongst all the character-heavy lifting between Jack, Marlene, and flashbacks of Victor. Ultimately, this clash of styles worked for me. All these hard-living, brooding, and involved lowlifes while Cyber Frankenstein thrashes in constant agony, grappling with child-like intelligence and slivers of memory as he nurtures his appetite for destruction, on a journey of hilariously violent romps that are a fun departure from the crass whining of very serious Detroiters. If you like this idea of mobsters embroiled with Frankenstein, try it on for size. You’ll get your glorious, violent finale. Give it a shot. Who knows?
This is another book with an interesting author story, but unlike F. Gardner, the writer Peter O’Keefe, has experienced professional success. He’s credited as a writer for Romero’s Tales from the Darkside. A show I vaguely remember catching reruns of in the nineties; a show as old as me. I was interested. There is more around the book I don’t fully understand, such as a hundred-page version written by O’Keefe released ten or so years ago, that might be an un-optioned manuscript version of the novel. I have some questions about how the current book came to be.
Counted With the Dead is a strange book. It’s billed as horror but is more of a mobster drama and period piece with a creature element.
O’Keefe takes his own at-bat on Frankenstein, but with a love triangle element. It’s set in Detroit. Also, there are mobsters, and it’s also the Bride of Frankenstein, but not really.
There are three protagonists. Jack Killeen, a hitman often accompanied by his brother, Marty, to do wetwork. Victor Moravian, a flailing businessman and art collector, that ultimately finds himself in the role of Frankenstein after a mortal run-in with Jack and a subsequent collection by O’Keefe’s Dr. Frankenstein. And finally, Marlene, the love interest of the two. There’s also our proverbial Dr. Frankenstein, Professor Drettmann, and his Igor-like assistant, DeRon, the mobsters Pompey, and Magoo, and others, and Jack’s ex-wife and precocious upstart teenager, and sassy black cop lady, and a few other people that get tied up into the proceedings. It’s a genre-bending piece of ingenuity that you have to admire.
The pacing is good and the book opens with Victor’s execution and quickly to the complications with Drettmann and DeRon, while Jack struggles with the mobsters, and Marlene often pines about the past. The reader is saddled with character work as exposition and flashbacks that lay the groundwork before we approach the play, and the characters are indeed the book’s strength, along with O’Keefe’s fascination with Detroit, or perhaps its protracted destruction.
After about a dozen brief chapters, the book finds its legs and becomes a series of events based around the fallout of Victor’s transformation, his attempts to get back to Marlene, and weed-smoking Jack navigating through the chaos while being hounded by mobsters and cops. There’s no need to discuss the plot much further than that without spoilers. Between the three primary characters, there is a handful of chapters devoted to DeRon, and his developing crisis in dealing with his work under the barbarous Dr. Drettmann.
We’ll touch on style a bit since the plot mostly works for me.
O’Keefe is at his best when he is narrating action or having a strong character moment. Action is violent, visceral, and occasionally comedic in a delightful way. All the Detroit mobster characters, Marty, Jack, and Marlene, they’re all believable as these sort of foul-mouthed ne’er-do-wells in 90’s Detroit, not that I’ve been, but frankly, it reminds me of the horrific Dartmouth gentry.
I would even say dialogue would be good if it wasn’t for almost every piece of dialogue requiring noun-verb action tags. It didn’t work for me and stuck out like a sore thumb. Exchanges often parse out like this:
DeRon is stunned. “Debridement?” He forces a smile, hoping, against all evidence, that the Professor is making a joke. “What were you going to do?”
Drettmann is not smiling. “I determined that the only remaining option was larval therapy.”
DeRon can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Maggots? Your solution…” He waves his arm in the direction of Jefferson Boulevard. “Your solution to all this was maggots?”
A big chunk of the book is like this, and it may hamper your enjoyment of this book. There are a few other small things. Double punctuation. Some minor typos (trolling used instead of trawling). Small fish.
Characters are indeed complex and lifelike. Despite this, it’s hard to say who the reader is supposed to root for. Jack gets the most page time, but he wouldn’t be out of place riding with John Joel Glanton and the Judge, collecting scalps in the south. He’s unpleasant, murderous, and not above threatening dogs and old ladies, yet he never really threatens the reader. Perhaps he’s in line with the Author’s vision of a Detroit hitman. For me, it’s hard to tell where he sidles in between an anti-hero, villain protagonist, or just plain villain.
The hard-boiled drama is in stark contrast with the Frankensteinian elements that are so different, you might get whiplash. There is a certain amusement in that, perhaps. I often chuckled at it. I’m not sure if that was O’Keefe’s intent or not. There’s a brief chapter, I won’t describe it, but it made the entire book worth it. All I will say is that it’s a kill reminiscent of a certain scene in Friday the 13th: New Blood. It was horrible, short, and hilarious.
The Frankenstein bits offer a pleasant change of pace and tone, even if it’s a little silly amongst all the character-heavy lifting between Jack, Marlene, and flashbacks of Victor. Ultimately, this clash of styles worked for me. All these hard-living, brooding, and involved lowlifes while Cyber Frankenstein thrashes in constant agony, grappling with child-like intelligence and slivers of memory as he nurtures his appetite for destruction, on a journey of hilariously violent romps that are a fun departure from the crass whining of very serious Detroiters. If you like this idea of mobsters embroiled with Frankenstein, try it on for size. You’ll get your glorious, violent finale. Give it a shot. Who knows?
March 3, 2025
I have a lot of books on my TBR and tend to read quickly, but this story made me want to slow down and bask in the horror of it. A hired killer with complicated relationships, a couple of corpse snatchers, a Frankenstein-like set up (with great, embellished parallels), what more could you want?
June 6, 2024
This is an odd book in the sense it is different. The craziness that happens in it is outstanding and outrageous. The thing is I couldn’t put it down because I had to see how it was going to end. Jack Killeen is a high paid hitman. He has a long history with Marleen but she loves Victor who is turned into a monster by a crazy doctor. The outcome is just as bizarre as the rest of the book. It is definitely a horror story but it is so much more. There are so many lessons to learn from the book. Love is a constant emotion in the book. The world of Detroit is broken along with its inhabitants. Jack decides he has to fix the damage he created. The ending of the story is open ended enough that it can have a sequel.
I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
June 1, 2024
Counted With The Dead is a noir-esque grimdark book set in collapsing late 20th century Detroit, with the urban graveyard “a zoo abandoned by its keepers” and a fitting backdrop to a story about a peerless killer and a peerless killing machine.
It’s a tale of a hitman, Jack Killeen, going up against a vengeance-motivated beast built from the parts of the men he killed for money, and in particular his last contract, a man who was married to Killeen’s former girlfriend. There are no angels in this story, at least among the lead characters.
This is a universe where even art resembles the brute assembly of the beast - it’s a Detroit where artists make “ugly, angry, incomprehensible objects … from house paint, scavenged lumber and plywood”.
Heavily inspired by Mary Shelley’s seminal Frankenstein (down to one character being called Victor), it does neat work in showing the beast’s development from a creature of pure instinct to one of some articulation and learning, as in Frankenstein, down to him asking his creator for a wife (and not considering in that moment that the wife might not want anything to do with him).
It’s not all smashing and violence. In a parallel with the ship of Theseus, it asks what makes a person a person, with the individual parts of the beast (“a man pieced haphazardly together from the torn limbs and twisted metal of a plane crash”) all having an influence on his personality and sometimes memories.
O’Keefe does a great job of setting both characters up as born and moulded by violence, meaning they are sort of matches rather than counterpoints, such as them both feeling invincible after extreme adrenaline rushes.
The descriptions of the decaying, abandoned city intensify too as the story progresses in a sort of parallel with the desperation and sense in some characters that whatever colour is left in the world is being drained. It was also a good idea to set the story in the pre-2000s because there’s no way the beast would be able to move around largely undetected in the current world of social media and widespread CCTV.
All in all this is a good one for fans of grimdark, body horror, and noir with a modern feel.
It’s a tale of a hitman, Jack Killeen, going up against a vengeance-motivated beast built from the parts of the men he killed for money, and in particular his last contract, a man who was married to Killeen’s former girlfriend. There are no angels in this story, at least among the lead characters.
This is a universe where even art resembles the brute assembly of the beast - it’s a Detroit where artists make “ugly, angry, incomprehensible objects … from house paint, scavenged lumber and plywood”.
Heavily inspired by Mary Shelley’s seminal Frankenstein (down to one character being called Victor), it does neat work in showing the beast’s development from a creature of pure instinct to one of some articulation and learning, as in Frankenstein, down to him asking his creator for a wife (and not considering in that moment that the wife might not want anything to do with him).
It’s not all smashing and violence. In a parallel with the ship of Theseus, it asks what makes a person a person, with the individual parts of the beast (“a man pieced haphazardly together from the torn limbs and twisted metal of a plane crash”) all having an influence on his personality and sometimes memories.
O’Keefe does a great job of setting both characters up as born and moulded by violence, meaning they are sort of matches rather than counterpoints, such as them both feeling invincible after extreme adrenaline rushes.
The descriptions of the decaying, abandoned city intensify too as the story progresses in a sort of parallel with the desperation and sense in some characters that whatever colour is left in the world is being drained. It was also a good idea to set the story in the pre-2000s because there’s no way the beast would be able to move around largely undetected in the current world of social media and widespread CCTV.
All in all this is a good one for fans of grimdark, body horror, and noir with a modern feel.
July 6, 2024
What first impresses about Counted with the Dead is its pacing. Chapter one thrusts the reader into the middle of some mythic murder scene where the flora and fauna are ominous symbols of worse to come. And come it does. It's no accident that the monster's name is Victor or that his first victims recall those of his illustrious, 19th-century predecessor. The chapters clip along, unspooling the narrative with verve and efficiency--a true page-turner.
The rough-edged, working-class characters--a hitman, mobsters, a mad scientist and his helper, and the woman that everyone is in love with--are all caught between impulses to do good, be better, yet the vice of the past, filled with all too common human error, won't loosen its grip. Punishment, forgiveness, and redemption haunt the novel as it careens toward the inevitable, climatic scene. O'Keefe has masterfully left clues and hints along the way--often slyly humorous--to setup the ending. The plot will keep you reading well into the night!
Not only is the pacing and plotting so adeptly rendered, but the writing itself is finely crafted. O'Keefe reaches through description and allusion for a sense of the mythic. The Detroit of the 80s and 90s recalls the ruins of other great civilizations. Yet the specificity of the decayed, mangled, sundered, and weather-worn city functions as a kind of character itself. Each scene depicts a particular factory, pharmacy, or warehouse that an interested reader could find, today, on a map.
It should be noted that the body count--including beloved pets--is high. But that's horror for you. Finally, while not wanting to give the ending away, it's a good and satisfying one!
The rough-edged, working-class characters--a hitman, mobsters, a mad scientist and his helper, and the woman that everyone is in love with--are all caught between impulses to do good, be better, yet the vice of the past, filled with all too common human error, won't loosen its grip. Punishment, forgiveness, and redemption haunt the novel as it careens toward the inevitable, climatic scene. O'Keefe has masterfully left clues and hints along the way--often slyly humorous--to setup the ending. The plot will keep you reading well into the night!
Not only is the pacing and plotting so adeptly rendered, but the writing itself is finely crafted. O'Keefe reaches through description and allusion for a sense of the mythic. The Detroit of the 80s and 90s recalls the ruins of other great civilizations. Yet the specificity of the decayed, mangled, sundered, and weather-worn city functions as a kind of character itself. Each scene depicts a particular factory, pharmacy, or warehouse that an interested reader could find, today, on a map.
It should be noted that the body count--including beloved pets--is high. But that's horror for you. Finally, while not wanting to give the ending away, it's a good and satisfying one!
August 18, 2024
QOTD: what's a city you'd love to visit?
"In Peter O’ Keefe’s Detroit, the streets are rougher than sandpaper, and the skyline looks like it’s been cobbled together from the remnants of a failed sci-fi set. It’s with this backdrop that O’Keefe stitches together “Counted With The Dead,” as a grimdark patchwork quilt- equal parts mobster drama, and Frankenstinian fever dream. Wholly original, and darkly humorous, “Counted With The Dead,” is a bloody, genre-bending dystopian… if your idea of a good time involves hitmen and reanimated corpses, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for. Thank you Peter for sending over a copy.
Victor Moravian seems to have found himself in a spot of trouble. A failed businessman, art collector, and now abductee, when hitman, Jack Killeen, raises his weapon to him, you would think that things couldn’t get worse. However, his luck hits rock bottom and keeps digging when he finds himself subject to a series of crude and grotesque experiments conducted by O’Keefe’s resident Dr. Frankenstein Professor Drettmann. Desperate to return to his beloved wife, Marlene, whose affections are also sought by Jack, you can imagine that what’s to come is barbaric, brutal, and as messy as it is entertaining."
You can read my full thoughts through the link in my bio, highlights or by heading to the fearforall section at fanfiaddict.com.
"In Peter O’ Keefe’s Detroit, the streets are rougher than sandpaper, and the skyline looks like it’s been cobbled together from the remnants of a failed sci-fi set. It’s with this backdrop that O’Keefe stitches together “Counted With The Dead,” as a grimdark patchwork quilt- equal parts mobster drama, and Frankenstinian fever dream. Wholly original, and darkly humorous, “Counted With The Dead,” is a bloody, genre-bending dystopian… if your idea of a good time involves hitmen and reanimated corpses, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for. Thank you Peter for sending over a copy.
Victor Moravian seems to have found himself in a spot of trouble. A failed businessman, art collector, and now abductee, when hitman, Jack Killeen, raises his weapon to him, you would think that things couldn’t get worse. However, his luck hits rock bottom and keeps digging when he finds himself subject to a series of crude and grotesque experiments conducted by O’Keefe’s resident Dr. Frankenstein Professor Drettmann. Desperate to return to his beloved wife, Marlene, whose affections are also sought by Jack, you can imagine that what’s to come is barbaric, brutal, and as messy as it is entertaining."
You can read my full thoughts through the link in my bio, highlights or by heading to the fearforall section at fanfiaddict.com.
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