Savage Membrane — Steve Niles

Cal McDonald has made a career helping and hunting the dark creatures that haunt the world, and has made as many friends as he has enemies. Among the docile ghouls of the city he is a friend. But to most, those who prey on innocent human lives, Cal is a sworn enemy. After years of cases, Cal finds himself in the middle of the strangest adventure of his life. People are dropping dead all over Washington, D.C., and the cause is a mystery. The bodies are unmarked, yet all brain matter is missing from their skulls; in fact, the brains are completely gone¨. In the tradition of the hardboiled fiction of Hammett and Chandler, Savage Membrane takes readers on a bizarre trip through an America populated by monsters, freaks, and ghouls. In the dark corners of the everyday world, strange beings walk among us. They live as postal workers and taxi drivers, lurking in the sewers and roaming the streets, ever awake and always on the hunt. And only Cal McDonald has the special talent for spotting and seeking out what most of us will never see.