Just in time for Halloween Greg Lamberson’s 2004 novel Personal Demons is receiving a well deserved paperback re-release from Medallion Press. The book follows Jake Helman — a detective with a penchant for booze and cocaine — who is on the trail of a serial killer dubbed the Ciper. When Helman’s corrupt ways finally catch up to him, he finds himself off the Ciper case and working for the mysterious billionaire Nicholas Tower as his head of security — a cushy dream job that soon turns into his worst nightmare. When the stakes become personal, Helman is forced into becoming a reluctant John Constantine, battling the supernatural to save his wife’s soul.

Lamberson seems to have thrown the kitchen sink into Personal Demons making it hard to categorize. Detective Helman gives it a dirty Noir feel, while he faces off against the undead, a powerful Mr. Tower (Think Dr. Mittenhand from Leprechaun 4), the serial killer Ciper, and laboratory created monsters. Normally stories stretching over so many genres tend to get muddled and confusing, but Demons manages to fit all the pieces together nicely, never once letting the chaos of Helman’s life destroy the overall story.

The mixture of noir and the supernatural is a sticky combination to tackle, but somehow Lamberson manages to pull it off. Personal Demons achieves in book form what Romero has failed to do with his latest films; spinning a decent allegory without beating you over the head with too much political commentary. It also thankfully doesn’t bury you in a lot of biblical jargon or outlandish explanations like some books of the same ilk tend to do.

Demons also succeeds by not letting the antihero Helman off with a rainbow happy ending. Bad habits die hard and I have a feeling that Jake is going to need them to survive his future adventures in Desperate Souls, Lamberson’s planned sequel to Personal Demons.