The main character, Mallory Caine, is a struggling attorney dealing with an ex-boyfriend who wants her back while trying to solve a murder. Her murder. Mallory deals with that pesky brain-eating detail by, well, eating brains. Between some brain munching and a really good skin cream she keeps herself in human shape, while trying to figure out not only who killed her but who brought her back and wants her to serve them. When a friend of hers is arrested for a murder Mallory committed, Mallory has to defend her without exposing herself. ( )

Mallory Caine is a lawyer in L.A. and she also happens to be a highly functioning zombie. Not stumbling around randomly eating anyone who gets in her way, but a fully functioning lawyer who happens to eat brains after work to survive.
Mallory takes a case of a young vampire that has been accused of killing a cop, but Mallory knows she is innocent as it was Mallory that ate his brains. Now she has to prove the vampire is innocent without getting herself caught.
This was a fun easy read with some decent characters. Not what I would have expected from a zombie book. ( )

You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2012/04/pay-me-in-flesh-mallory-caine-zombie-at-law...

This one surprised me, in a totally good way! I imagined a quick, fun, read, and it was, but there was also some unexpected depth that caught me off guard. Mallory Caine is an L.A. defense attorney, and she’s also a zombie. Not of the shambling kind, though. Turns out, someone shot Mallory, but what should have killed her, didn’t, and she found herself one of the walking dead, forced to eat brains to survive. Mallory does this by posing as street walker Amanda on her feeding nights, and using her trusty hook to procure what she needs to live. Mallory doesn’t take this lightly, though. In fact, she loathes herself every time she does it, and she hopes to find her killer, get her soul back, and hopefully return to one of the living. As an author, I would imagine that getting your audience to love a character that must kill people in such a gruesome manner would be a challenge, but this author is more than up to it!

In this first installment, Mallory must defend a young vampire prostitute accused of killing a cop. Mallory knows without a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t do it, but proving it will be a challenge, especially when the prosecution is her former love, Aaron Argula, who wants Mallory back. It also doesn’t help that someone is killing the area zombies. With swords. And Mallory might be next.

Like I said, this was such a fun read, combining court drama with supernatural hijinks involving vampires, shape shifters, epic battles of good and evil, and of course, zombies. Mallory is smart, sarcastic, and one kick ass lawyer, and I zipped through this one with a quickness. I’m really looking forward to diving into the 2nd book, The Year of Eating Dangerously! ( )

Interesting premise. (An inside take on the common view of lawyers?) Some unexpected humor in this book as well as pathos. You really feel compassion for Mallory, while realizing that she is just not now, or probably ever, someone who would be fun to hang around with. She takes her job as a defense lawyer seriously and I would want her defending me. The supernatural twists just keep coming. I hope they don't pull a "Lost" on me. But I liked it well enough that I have picked up the second book. ( )

PAY ME IN FLESH: MALLORY CAINE, ZOMBIE AT LAW
By K. Bennett
Pinnacle Fiction (paperback) (also available in e-book)
August 2011

Book Review by Linda S. Brown

With so many witty one-liners, the reader of PAY ME IN FLESH: MALLORY CAINE, ZOMBIE AT LAW might easily be distracted from the storyline while snickering at the jokes. A review could quite easily be comprised simply of some of those snappy jokes. For example, Mallory’s philosophy: "Making people squirm on the witness stand is one of the things I do best. I like to practice it in the outside world, too." But that review would not do the book justice: there is a story here, and it is a well-crafted zombie/vampire/murder mystery. Trying to untangle the story without giving too much away is the tricky part.

Mallory Caine is an attorney in Los Angeles. She is sexy, smart, aggressive – and dead. She is a zombie. She spends her days defending her clients, some of whom deserve it, some not so much; she spends her nights working the streets (no, not that kind of “work,” although she does get to know a lot of streetwalkers), looking for food (zombies don’t just drop into the local grocers for a freshly harvested brain, after all), trying to discover who murdered her, turned her into a zombie – and why. And what is the source of the Voice in her head? What is it trying to tell her?

When the police call her to a familiar address, Mallory discovers they are trying to arrest a friend of hers, Traci Ann. Traci Ann is a prostitute wanted for murder of a cop. As it happens, she is also a vampire. But Traci Ann’s grandmother is determined to prevent the police from taking her out of the house – after all, everyone knows a vamp can’t go out in the daylight.

To further complicate matters, Mallory has a larger number of adversaries than the average attorney: she must do courtroom battle with her very attractive, very attentive ex-boyfriend, prosecutor Aaron Argula. Who knew zombies had sex drives? Mallory certainly has one, and must fight off appetites of varying sorts whenever she encounters Aaron -- which is often, since he’s prosecuting the case of the murdered cop. Mallory must also fight off a mysterious hooded man who trails around after her, wielding a sword, evidently intent upon beheading her. And she seems to be pursued by a large flock of birds, including a particularly menacing owl.

And then there’s the question of Faith... It’s not every day one encounters a zombie seeking answers from God and comfort from priests. It’s probably even less frequent that the afore-mentioned priests turn into screaming demons. And yet this is Mallory’s life. Or death. Or whatever.

But perhaps the most entertaining feature about Mallory is her interview technique when hunting food (i.e. fresh brain). Her first question for her prey is “Where did you go to school?” She figures if she’s going to eat brain, she’d like it to be relatively intelligent. She has her standards: “Drug dealers are not always the best source of brains, but they’re a step up from the users.”

And, of course, because this is a story set in Los Angeles, home of Hollywood with all its glory and grit, there is a fading movie star and her faithful bodyguard, in a big, beautiful mansion on a hill. And because this is a mystery novel, nothing in that castle is as it seems…

So, Mallory Caine, Zombie at Law, has her hands full (not least of which is making sure she takes enough shark cartilage to keep her hands attached to her arms). PAY ME IN FLESH: MALLORY CAINE, ZOMBIE AT LAW is a unique, entertaining beginning to what promises to be a unique, entertaining series. Read it on a plane or bus – you’ll snicker, you’ll laugh, and your neighbor will most likely uneasily squirm away from you… ( )