WOW! What a ride!! Joe Lazurus is a police detective. When he finds his own dead body during an investigation, his world view changes...just a bit. Joe finds himself in the Pen, the place for souls who were mostly good. He's offered the chance to earn his way into a better place by investigating those crimes the living police have problems solving. He is assigned a spirit guide.....and what a character she is! This was a wonderfully different kind of police procedural that it's hard to say how much I enjoyed it. The world building, the characters and their back stories, all blended to make this a book that I'm sure to recommend to all my fellow readers.

A cop lies dead on the floor. The same cop stands above him, not quite believing his eyes. Waiting to offer him a new job in an afterlife cop squad ready to right the wrongs and solve how the cop died is his comedy sidekick. Sound familiar? It should, this is the basic premise of RIPD a favourite film of mine so I couldn't wait to get my hands in this book.
The story is somewhat similar, but thats all.
Not a bad book by any means, I did enjoy the story of Joe's detective life and Daisy-Mays awful life. I was left wondering if there would be more books to follow with this ghost team of cops?

Utterly Brilliant, unlike anything I have read recently Great Characters, Original storyline I couldn't put this book down, I was so pleased when I was able to also secure a signed hardcover copy from Goldsboro books, I really look forward to the next in the series and would not hesitate to recommend this book to others,

Interesting and promising premise - I like urban fantasy but crime and police procedurals are difficult for me to get into - but unfortunately failed to engage me. A failing of the reader rather than the book, it just wasn't for me.

... good writing, persuasive characters and I get the gimmick but I'm afraid it's too cute for me .. the opening chapters are about watching him getting his head around his current moribund position. He's then looking for his own murderer.. it sort of undermines the intrigue .. too light hearted I suppose.. if it had gone dark or noir I would have liked it more .. .

Joe Lazarus is on a stake out, due to raid a drugs lair when he wakes up in a ditch. A young pink haired woman, Daisy-May, stands over him & tells him he's dead! It's not until he sees his body in the cottage that he thinks she might be right. She informs him he needs to solve his murder- well that's an unusual start right enough! This was an unusual take on a murder mystery & one that drew me to the book in the first place. Maybe as this is supposed to be a start to a series there was a lot of explaining to do. However I found the politics of The Pen somewhat boring. The description of Lincolnshire was great- having spent 10 not particularly happy months there years ago I couldn't have agreed more! I loved Daisy-May but in spite of the originality of the idea the book left me a bit flat. Sadly I'm not sure if I'd read another in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

This book was quite an adventure! This was really an entertaining read, and I will read some more by this author in future. Recommended.

I gave this book a go as it was recommended by MW Craven (quite a high recommendation!) and wasn’t disappointed.

Its such a unique idea for a crime/fantasy novel – the detective needs to solve his own murder. But theres so much more to this book, Simcox has created a great new world where he brings purgatory and the afterlife, well, to life!

Added to this a great cast of characters, and a brilliant plot twist towards the end (which I didn’t see coming), The Dying Squad is a hugely entertaining novel. I cant wait for book 2.

What a refreshing unique read. Joe is a police officer staking out a drug bust, all of a sudden he is approached by Daisy may who tells him he is dead and the pair get to work on who killed who. At times this book had dark humor and suspense and was just what I needed after feeling like I was reading the same crimes of crime books. This is very different to the normal and had me engaged through out

WHO BETTER TO SOLVE A MURDER THAN A DEAD DETECTIVE?

When Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus storms a Lincolnshire farmhouse, he expects to bring down a notorious drug gang; instead, he discovers his own body and a spirit guide called Daisy-May.

She’s there to enlist him to The Dying Squad, a spectral police force who solve crimes their flesh and blood counterparts cannot.

Lazarus reluctantly accepts and returns to the Lincolnshire Badlands, where he faces dangers from both the living and the dead in his quest to discover the identity of his killer – before they kill again.

Two reviews in a handful of days? Yes, when you’re on a roll you’ve just got to go with it. Our second book of the week features more murder, but this time things have a distinctly supernatural air rather than science fiction vibe. The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox follows a dead cop given the opportunity to discover the truth of his own demise.

The big problem with being dead though is that your memory is Swiss cheese at best. The more time you spend amongst the living, the less of yourself you remember. Not the most useful skill when you are attempting to uncover a murderer. It makes Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus a fascinating protagonist. He spends as much time trying to remember who he is as he does trying to solve the case. There is a core of confusion and niggling self-doubt in his own abilities that was refreshing. I love the fact that he has to go old school and carry around a notebook so he can refer to it when the fugue of the afterlife descends. It has a nice Memento-esque quality. The more he investigates the more he finds himself questioning who he is. That growing sense of uncertainty kept me hooked.

Fortunately, Joe is not entirely alone in his journey. As the new boy in The Dying Squad, he has been partnered with someone more experienced in the ways of the dead. Daisy-May is a foul-mouthed teen with a penchant for sarcasm. Her character is a breath of fresh air. Outspoken to the point of bolshie-ness, she is a perfect counterpoint to Joe’s confusion. Daisy-May speaks as she finds, often brutally so. I loved her. Simcox ensures there is depth to the character. We get to learn a some of Daisy-May’s backstory. I often find secondary characters are given short shrift. They don’t get the opportunity to breathe. Not so in this case. Beneath all the bravado and cocksure attitude, there is a strength to the Daisy-May that is so intense seems almost tangible. We get to see what has made her the way she is and how that inner steel guides her actions.

Though I’m Scottish, by a weird twist of fate, I am quite familiar with the wilds of Lincolnshire. It is the perfect setting for the novel. Amongst the seemingly endless fields, there is a stark beauty. The county is just about as flat as anywhere could be and the horizon seems to go on forever. Lincolnshire winters can be pretty damned bleak and I have to admit, having been there at that time of the year, the evocative descriptions of Joe’s surroundings are bang on the money.

I was surprised by just how gritty The Dying Squad manages to be. Through the course of their investigations, Joe and Daisy-May have to rub supernatural shoulders with all manner of low lives. Drug dealers, pimps and junkies abound. Turns out, for a rural location, Lincolnshire is quite the hotbed of crime. The drug trade does not bring out the best in people and there are double-crosses and violent death all over the place. Simcox’s writing never sugar coats any of this. The people drawn into this world are broken down and spat out by it. There is no glamour here. The story manages the feat of blending hard-nosed crime with the supernatural very effectively. It’s impressive stuff, made all the more so when you discover this is the author’s debut novel.

I really enjoyed The Dying Squad. The revelations towards the novel’s end were well handled and I could have happily read more. That’s probably a good thing as things are left wide open for a sequel. Fingers crossed that appears at some point in the future.

The Dying Squad is published by Gollancz and is available from 22nd July.

My musical recommendation to accompany The Dying Squad is the soundtrack to the television series Collateral by Ruth Barrett. It has an otherworldly quality the I think matches the overall tone of the novel rather nicely.

Joe is a copper, and wakes up inside a remote farmhouse he's been staking out. He's met by Daisy May, an assertive teenager who informs him that he's dead and escorts him to the Pen (purgatory). He is recruited onto the Dying Squad to investigate his own death - the trouble with being dead is you can't remember very much about what happened back then. Whilst Joe and Daisy May look into his (and her) death) an insurrection is beginning to take place in the Pen. Its a complex and intriguing plot and an interesting fantasy world of imagination.. There are multiple villans - who will survive - and how?

The supernatural thriller "The Dying Squad" by Adam Simcox blends police procedural detective fiction with urban fantasy and therefore stands in the tradition of Ben Aaronovitch's popular "Rivers of London" series with the unique feature that the detective is dead, which is a little reminiscent of the 2013 movie "R.I.P.D.".

When he arrives at a crime scene on the Lincolnshire Badlands faced with his own corpse, Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus doesn’t want to acknowledge that he’s actually dead. But when he finds himself in purgatory, and is recruited into the Dying Squad by the Dutchess, the warden of the Pen, to solve his own murder, he’s forced to accept the truth. He returns to the mortal plane with his new partner Daisy-May, who is also dead and annoyingly sassy, and they attend Joe's funeral.. He gets on the trail of the drug gang he was investigating before, but the task turns out to be quite difficult, because he can’t remember much about his previous findings or even more than the basics of his identity. At the same time he has to sort out the rules of afterlife and how heaven and hell work, even as.the stakes become bigger than just finding a way to get to heaven. For dangers lurk on both sides of the astral plane. Even though they're forbidden to physically interfere with the living, Daisy-May does, which sets the Xylophone Man, a creepy monster with an elephant skull for a head, on their trail. Meanwhile, the Duchess is faced with the problem of her sister Hanna stirring up the Dispossessed, which could have severe consequences for the Pen and those who inhabit it. At the same time, Joe needs to discover the identity of his killers before they commit another murder.

The book is fast paced, easy to read, full of action, contains multiple plot twists as well as several shocking discoveries. It's part detective thriller, part ghost story, and part horror novel mixed with gritty humour. Each page seems to have new ideas or a funny line, and the police work comes over as authentic. Daisy-May is a dazzling character to spend time with as a reader, and the relationship between Joe and Daisy-May is just one of the highlight of the novel, just not in the way one might initially expect. At the end of the book, which sets things up nicely for a sequel, they have to re-evaluate their believes. By changing perspectives between his main characters, Simcox brings them to life, telling in flashbacks the events leading up to their deaths, and brings you to care about their welfare readers, even if they may not really deserve that sympathy.

It was the tag line "who better to solve a murder than a dead detective" that got me hooked in the first place. It turns out, the book didn't disappoint me. I found it a wildly entertaining page turner. It's fresh, inventive, creepy and funny. I will look out for the next installment.

Many thanks to Gollancz and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

An unusual type of book, combining a thriller story injected with humour , Inspector Joe Lazarus is on the point of raiding a Farmhouse drugs store when he is joined by a girl Daisy May . She goes into the house with him and he discovers his own body ripped through with a shotgun blast . Daisy May convinces him he is dead and they return to purgatory . Daisy May becomes his partner and they are tasked to investigate his own murder . A rollercoaster of a tale ensues as they return to the soil as spirits . They uncover Daisy May's murdered body and try to find out what had happened before their return to the other side . There were times when I thought is this a young adult story , but enjoyed it all the same.

The Dying Squad is a darkly captivating tale with just the right mix of humor, suspense, and mystery. Despite darker moments, it’s not a depressing read; It contains hope and innocence, strength and determination. I look forward to reading more from Simcox in the future.

Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus stands in a ditch outside a deserted Lincolnshire farmhouse. It’s being used by a gang of countylines drug dealers to store drugs. It's a gang he’s been working hard to bring down and he’s conducting a solo surveillance of the house. But then a teenage girl walks up to his hideout and asks what he’s doing. She seems to know about the operation and so he assumes she’s undercover police or an informant. She accompanies him into the house and there he finds a couple of dead drug dealers and his own dead body. Because Lazarus has himself been murdered and is now a spirit.

So start’s his quest to solve his own murder. The girl, Daisy May, takes him to a bleak purgatory and The Duchess, the woman in charge of this halfway house of the afterlife, tells him if he wants to move on from there and to a better place (or perhaps worse) he needs to return to earth and find out who killed him and why. But there are complications. The air on earth is toxic and rots his memories, and if he doesn’t solve the crime quickly, he will lose his mind completely and be condemned to walk the earth, a mindless ghost.

The Dying Squad is the author’s debut and is a supernatural crime thriller. The book has two strands running through it - Joe’s attempt to solve his murder, which is the crime thriller bit, and the supernatural strand which brings in heaven and hell, and a sinister beast, the Xylophone Man, who snatches souls to carry down to eternal damnation.

This is a well-plotted novel, and the characters are compelling. Daisy May in particular is an interesting character. It also has a surprising twist, and I thought I knew who was behind Joe’s murder until near the end when the surprise was sprung. The narrative resolved itself well and is left open for a sequel, though it equally could remain as a self-contained story if the author wanted to write something else.

An impressive debut by a novelist to watch.

I didn’t really get on with this book and gave up. Can’t really be doing with the other-worldly conceit on which it is based. The problem is probably mine but there are too many great books based more obviously in the real world fir me to be detained for too long with this. Sorry

The Dying Squad is a sci-fi fantasy crime novel which also raises questions on the perception of life after death so it is a fascinating story.
When DI Joe Lazarus enters a suspected county-lines drug house he is shocked to find his own body lying there. Whilst reeling from this he is approached by a young girl , Daisy-May, who tells him that she is also dead but will guide him to the other side. She accompanies him to the Pen (or Purgatory) where the person in charge, The Duchess, tells him that he must solve the mystery of his own murder and discover who killed him.
Adam Simcox has created a fresh style of crime thriller which will appeal to a broad audience of sci-fi and crime enthusiasts. The fantasy lies in the barriers to the living world and way of ‘life’ of the dead but the crime solving has all to do with the living. There are flashes of humour and horror and characters are well depicted. Twist and turns abound and make it a roller coaster read.
Many thanks to Orion and NetGalley for the ARC.

Unravelling tale as a policeman discovers he is dead and part of the Dying Squad with a need to investigate his own murder with the enigmatic Daisy-May as his sidekick, But of course the struggle to retain memories (an issue for the recently departed) makes the unreliable narrator a clever device as he discovers his own backstory and of course not all it what it seems. Well paced and entertaining this, if it becomes a series, may be a good one to follow.

The Dying Squad is the very first instalment in the gritty and gripping Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus series of supernatural thrillers. DI Joe Lazarus has always believed he could solve any murder, but that was until it came to his own. When Lazarus storms a Lincolnshire farmhouse, he expects to bring down a notorious drug gang using it as their base of operations; instead, he discovers his own bleeding-out body and a spirit guide called Daisy-May. She's there to enlist him to The Dying Squad, a spectral police force who solve crimes their flesh and blood counterparts cannot and are made up of the recently deceased. Joe soon realises there are fates far worse than death. To escape being stuck in purgatory, he must solve his own murder. A task made all the more impossible when his memories start to fade.

Lazarus reluctantly partners with Daisy-May and returns to the Lincolnshire Badlands, where he faces dangers from both the living and the dead in his quest to discover the identity of his killer - before they kill again. After all, who better to solve a murder than a dead detective? This is a compelling, completely original supernatural mystery thriller filled with wit, intensity and plenty of twisty surprises. It's addictive and I loved just how fresh the ideas were within it as we all know the crime genre can sometimes become a little stale in terms of new, exciting concepts. It also has a real sense of style to it and comes across as cool and intelligently plotted. The dialogue is fresh and witty, and the action zips along, grounding the supernatural with authentic police investigations that will thrill Brit-crime fans. Highly recommended to those looking for something unique.

Breathtakingly good. Joe Lazarus and Daisy-May as characters riff off each other perfectly, in a story that starts with a mind-bending blast, and gets progressively more intense from there. One of my favourite reads of the year.