May 7, 1896. Dusk.
A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down on the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.
His second life will be nothing like his first.
Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there, he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.
Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?
Ambitious and heartbreaking, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.
Grade: A. One of the Top 10 Books of the Year.
Entertainment Weekly
“A splendidly rendered, macabre picaresque—muscular and tender, imaginative and grotesque, cynical yet deeply moving.”
RICK YANCEY, The 5th Wave
“It’s the sort of book every author wishes they’d written, even though they know they can’t. It’s strange, and marvelous, and funny, and dark, and I didn’t want it to end.”
V.E. SCHWAB, Vicious
“An absolutely sweeping tale of brilliance that drowns its reader in an intoxicating tale of death and degradation, with an absolutely masterful ending. Kraus has a beautifully twisted mind.”
ZAC BREWER, The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod