Stiffs and Stones

Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. #10

by Kevin J. Anderson

Dan Shamble, zombie P.I.
He’s a stiff detective, and he’s got stones!
The cases don’t solve themselves in the Unnatural Quarter, filled with ghosts, vampires, mummies, werewolves, and other mythical creatures. It takes an intrepid zombie detective to decipher mysteries, unravel conspiracies, track down cursed objects, and find time for a beer with his Best Human Friend at the Goblin Tavern.
Dan Shamble, zombie P.I., is back from the dead and back on the case in this new collection of eight wacky adventures—featuring a cyclops who lost his eyeball on a drunken bender, an Aztec mummy who wants revenge for too many parking tickets, a crawling hand accused of fingering expensive objects from a curio shop, a distraught mutant fly mother searching for her missing maggots, and the real boogeyman (an insurance salesman) being harassed by his ghoulish aunts. These cases have enough plot twists and stomach turns to keep you guessing, and chuckling, until the very end.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Collections

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Yes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. I love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.

I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.

I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.

My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.

Reviews

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories of the unnaturals

Stuffs and Stones
By Kevin J. Anderson
This book had several short stories of Dan Shamble's mysteries to solve, and they were quit clever, witty, and humorous.

[Kaye Lynne Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stiffs & Stones, by Kevin J. Anderson is a collection of eight Dan Shamble, P.I. short stories, some which were published earlier, so I chose to focus my review on the stories I hadn’t read and reviewed previously. This collection of undead stories will keep you laughing until the last page.

“Hand Job” is the tale of a disembodied hand who has been framed for a robbery it didn’t commit and it’s up to Dan Shamble to prove its innocence. If there’s one thing the zombie P.I. doesn’t need with this case, it’s a hand. (Although these stories are filled with it, that corney humor is my own.)
“Bull Runs” is the tale of the Meter Maid Minitaur with tummy trouble. It’s up to Dan Shamble to discover the reason the Minituars are all falling ill and stop the debilitating illness before the big charity race.
“Mystery Meat” is the case of the giant Momma Fly with missing baby maggots. This case takes Dan Shamble into the backstreets of the Unnatural Quarter where he uncovers the source of the new and delicious mystery meat being served while searching for the missing tots.
“Holy Balls” is the tale of a warlock whose witchy wife is after his (crystal) balls, and it’s up to Dan Shamble to protect them. But the witchy wife is relentless, and Dan Shamble must use the highest security measures he has to protect the warlock’s balls.
“The Eyeball at the End of the Rainbow” is the tale of an inebriated Leprechaun who has misplaced the eye of the Centuar stoner, leaving him blind and straight until Dan Shamble can solve the case and find the missing eyeball.
Also included are “Bump in the Night”, “Fire in the Hole”, and “Heart of Clay”.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually listened to the audiobook of this collection (read by the author). If you've read earlier works in the series, you know what to expect, and this was a fun collection of stories.