Longtime Daily Dead readers know that we're big fans of Scott Kenemore, the author of the popular living dead trilogy that includes Zombie, Ohio, Zombie, Illinois, and Zombie, Indiana. In Kenemore's latest novel, Lake of Darkness, crime fiction and supernatural horror collide with deadly results in Chicago during World War I. With Lake of Darkness coming out digitally and in paperback on May 5th from Talos Press, we've been provided with an excerpt from the book that features an unsettling meeting with a witch.

You can read our excerpt from Kenemore's Lake of Darkness by clicking the cover art below. For more information on Kenemore, visit his official website, and to learn more about his new book, visit Talos Press and Amazon.

"An Alternate History in which Power, Crime, and the Supernatural Intersect on the South Side of Chicago

During the First World War, on the South Side of Chicago, officer Joe “Flip” Flippity has begun an investigation into a serial decapitationist who is hunting young children. At a time when African American officers are rendered second-class by prejudicial policies, Flip is nonetheless called upon by the mayor of the city—the legendary Big Bill Thompson himself—and a host of powerful city fathers, to thwart this murderer who threatens to destroy the city's reputation as a safe haven for those making the Great Migration north.

While searching to catch his killer—and to discover why the most powerful men in Chicago are truly concerned about the murders of poor black refugees—Flip's bloody trail takes him through the South Side’s vice districts (where anything is available for a price), across its most dangerous criminal underbellies, and into a bracing and unexpected world of supernatural horror.

As Flip digs deeper in his quest to protect the city’s most vulnerable, he stumbles upon more mysterious murders, confounding psychological puzzles, and terrifying hints of something "other" that may reach across from unknowable distances to guide the hand of a killer. It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it seems, and that mysterious and powerful forces are conspiring to stand in Flip’s way.

A combination of detective thriller, cosmic horror, and historical fiction, Lake of Darkness takes us to the deepest and darkest places in Chicago’s very dark history."

Click the cover art to read the excerpt:

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.