Del Farmer
(aka Del Winter)
Created by Duane Swierczynski

He's hot, he's hip, he's dead.

Meet DEL WINTER, hard-boiled dick. But Winter isn't like the other shamuses you may find on this site. For one thing, he's shuffled off this mortal coil.

Really.

Or at least, he was.

For another, he can absorb other recently-departed souls and store them in his brain. Victims, criminals, hopheads, sex fiends, accountants, whatever; as long as they've taken the deep six fairly recently, he can collect 'em. He calls them the residents of his "brain hotel," and they aid his investigations with either info or talent. They're also great drinking buddies.

This ain't all for fun and games, though. Winter is a dead man on a mission: To cripple the shadowy crime organization known as "The Association," who had Del killed in the first place. They lopped off his fingers with wirecutters, they smashed his beloved Underwood typewriter to bits, they messed up his hair part. Now Del is back for revenge, and looking for anyone who can help him -- dead or alive.

What's even more of a kick in the pants: Since discorporated souls lack the ability to pay $100 a day plus expenses, Del realizes he needs to do some additional P.I. work to finance his war against the "secret dead men" of The Association.

Del's creator, Duane Swierczynski has edited and written for many magazines, including Men's Health, Cosmopolitan, Success, Details and Philadelphia, and has contributed short fiction to such on-line publications such as GothicNet, Dark Planet, and Fright Net. He grew up in Philadelphia, playing keyboards in his father's eerily Partridge Family-like wedding band. Therapy has helped a great deal. He's also an occasional contributor to this site, but we're keeping an eye on him, just in case.....

He's also the author or co-author of such classic non-fiction works as The Spy's Guide: Office Espionage and The Big Book o' Beer: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Greatest Beverage on Earth. Secret Dead Men is his first novel, and I believe the official word on it is "hoot."

Hell, I'm even an honourary guest of the Brain Hotel. It says so right in the acknowledgements.

EXCERPT

• "Secret Dead Men" (January 1999, Thrilling Detective Web Site)

NOVELS

• Secret Dead Men (2004). Buy this book

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, a proud Brain Hotel resident.