Half-Resurrection Blues

“Simply put, Daniel José Older has one of the most refreshing voices in genre fiction today.”

—Saladin Ahmed

“A damn good read. All the best dark urban fantasies are about matters of life and death.
Half-Resurrection
Blues
takes that to the limit. A hard-core, hard-driving fantasy.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Simon R. Green

“In
Half-Resurrection Blues
, Older has created Noir for the Now: equal parts bracing, poignant, compassionate, and eerie. A swinging blues indeed.”

—Nalo Hopkinson, Andre Norton Award–winning author of
Sister Mine

“Daniel José Older is here to save your soul. But he might just terrorize it first.
Half-Resurrection Blues
is the first novel of a fabulous talent, one who mixes the spectral and the intellectual with skill. This book kicks in the door waving the literary .44. Be warned.”

—Victor LaValle, author of
The Devil in Silver

“
Half-Resurrection Blues
is so many things at once: a mystery, a suspense, a supernatural thriller. The world Older builds is familiar and alien, and it’s so vividly imagined and rendered that the reader believes the contradictions. This is a fantastic beginning to what will surely be a fantastic series.”

—National Book Award–winner Jesmyn Ward

“
Half-Resurrection Blues
is not just a daring new mode of ghost-detective story; it’s also a courageous effort to celebrate the diverse voices that surround us.”

—Deji Bryce Olukotun, author of
Nigerians in Space

“
Half-Resurrection Blues
is a delicious urban fantasy paced like a thriller and scored like a fine piece of music. Daniel José Older hits all the soft, sweet notes of Brooklyn as well as its hard edges.”

—Andrea
Hairston

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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Daniel José Older, 2015

Some portions of this book originally appeared as “Death on the Fine Line” in the Innsmouth Free Press magazine, copyright © Daniel José Older, 2010

Excerpt from
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
Copyright © 1987, 1999, 2007, 2012 by Gloria Anzaldúa. Reprinted by permission of Aunt Lute Books. www.auntlute.com

Map by Cortney Skinner

Frontispiece drawing by Cortney Skinner

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—
MARCA REGISTRADA

ISBN 978-0-698-16679-0

PUBLISHER
’
S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To Iya Lisa Ramos and Iya Ramona
Coleman

To live in the Borderlands means

the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off

your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart

pound you pinch you roll you out

smelling like white bread but dead;

To survive the Borderlands

you must live
sin fronteras

be a crossroads.

—Gloria Anzaldúa

“To live in the Borderlands means
you”