Vivia Brisk knows about the dead. She should. She’s died enough times.

Vivia is a hag – or death witch – one of the last of her race, and can die, visit the underworld and return at will. As a consultant with charity The Lipscombe Trust, she has a job she loves – helping London’s most vulnerable supernaturals, even if her colleague Malcolm drives her round the bend on a daily basis.

Vivia thinks she’s got Malcolm’s measure – sexist, not too bright and generally a pain in the ass, but then Malcolm zombifies and, along with his fourteen year old son Ben, flees the police.

With a zombie on the loose, London goes into lock down and Vivia is roped in into find them. After all, Malcolm can only keep control so long without fresh flesh, and the risk of the zompocalypse increases the longer he’s on the lam.

Cara’s Review

This book is absolutely AMAZING.  In the saturated paranormal field, it is a bit difficult to come up with something completely new, but Fairbrother managed it.  Well written, with a fantastic cast of characters, The Secret Dead takes place in an alternate of our world, with shifters, witches, fae, and all sorts of other creatures exist.  Vivia Brisk is the main character and a death hag- definitely not you picture perfect heroine, but there she is, warts and all (literally).

In a case which, I admit, is somewhat confusing, Vivia assist the police in searching for her now zombified ex-coworker and his missing son.  Things become more and more confusing.complicated once old secrets come to light, but Vivia bravely wanders through it all,  Never mind that she really doesn’t know how to be a death hag, or the limits and extent of her powers.  Brisk’s character isn’t a superhero, she’s just a girl (who happens to be able to die and come back to life) barely scrapping by, taking care of her invalid sister, never aging step-father, and ignoring her mothers corpse in the attic.

I can’t even say enough good things about this book.  It’s not perfect, but it is such a unique and different story, I feel like giving it less than four stars would be short-changing it.  If you are looking for a good paranormal mystery, one where you won’t be able to guess on page three who-dun-it, this should be in your “to read” pile.  I can’t recommend this book enough!  Please, do yourself a favor, and buy this book.  Fair warning though: it ends with a huge cliffhanger.  When you are finished, you can join me in a letter writing campaign to Fairbrother so that she hurries up and publishes the next book!

At first what happened seems simple, but then the police find decades-old corpses hidden near Malcolm’s house, and Vivia begins to realise Malcolm’s missing son is in a lot more danger than from just a single zombie on the loose…