Levi Adams is a soft spoken, middle-aged Mennonite man—at least he tries to be when he’s not murdering people. Levi’s a golem, a Mudman, crafted from the muck, mire, and corpses of a World War II concentration camp—killing is just a part of his DNA. He doesn’t like it, but unfortunately he’s been saddled with a divine commission to dole out judgment on those who shed innocent blood. After seventy years as a cold-blooded murder machine, however, Levi’s trying to change his grisly nature. And the AA meetings and church services are helping. A little. But when he runs across a wounded girl, Sally Ryder, during one of his “hunting expeditions,” he realizes self-help may have to go on the back burner. Someone is attempting to revive a pre-Babylonian murder god, and the road to rebirth is paved with dead bodies. Lots and lots of them. Now, Levi must protect Ryder—the key to an unspeakable resurrection—and defeat a Nazi mage from Levi’s murky past. But the shadowy mage holds a terrible secret about the Mudman’s unorthodox birth, one offering insight into Levi’s morbid compulsion for bloodshed. It’s a secret Levi would pay anything to uncover: maybe even Ryder’s life. If Levi isn’t careful, he may end up turning into the monster he always imagined himself to be.
All right. When I saw the title and cover of MudMan I had absolutely no idea what to expect. But after reading the blurb I at least had to give this a chance because it absolutely sounded unlike anything I’ve read before and that isn’t something that comes along often.
MudMan ended up being a interesting story that never quite went the way I expected it to. The main character Levi has a very dark past and much of the story comes from this same dark place. He’s very much the unlikely hero mentioned on the cover. His story moves along at a quick clip and there were points where I almost needed to put the book down just to take in everything that had happened so far.
There are a lot of great supernatural elements in MudMan as well that touch on some of my favorite superhero type tropes while also consistently adding something new to the mix. Highly recommended.
librarynerdette 