FROM THE DUST JACKET OF
PATRON SAINTS OF THE LIVING DEAD
Zombies are the living dead. They might be reanimated corpses or persons rendered mindless and soulless. But they do exist.
A young man is called to the bedside of his dying father. The father assigns him a quest: he is not sure whom his own father was and wants to learn of him before he dies. That man must be one of thirteen European scientists who came to America after World War I.
The scientists had worked in the war efforts of their fatherlands. They sought not to develop better weapons, but better soldiers. Soldiers who would follow any order, soldiers who felt no pain or fear, soldiers who would continue fighting as long as their brains remained intact. The scientists were creating zombies.
The thirteen—perhaps all the proverbial “mad doctors”—employed creative means to achieve their ends. Much of their research centered on neurotoxins from exotic plants, from molds found in graves, or from excretions from fish or frogs. Some also used electronics, surgery, and hypnotism. And some used black magic.
None found success before the end of the war. All migrated to the New World; all were intent on continuing their work. What little they knew of Haitian Voodoo intrigued them. Ten arrived in New Orleans, and from there spread across America and the Caribbean. Only one stayed in Louisiana. Two settled on the island of Saint Sebastian, and one eventually reached Santa Isabella. Three went to Haiti, center of western Voodoo. One moved to New York, another to Nevada, and another to a remote Pacific Island. The other three migrated through Canada and found homes in Idaho. The experiments of one of them accidentally rendered him a near-zombie.
Unintended results often plagued the scientists. The young man learns that the wives of several of them—intentionally or otherwise—had been doomed to catatonic states.
The young man, fulfilling his father’s wish, travels across America, encountering men who raise the dead, who practice a hellish variant of Voodoo, and who perform lobotomies. And the diligent son encounters actual zombies.