Living Dead Man
By Marc Bernier 

      A young man named Coop returns from Vietnam with a slight head injury. The rest of his platoon was all killed in a shark attack before his very eyes. Upon returning home to Los Diablos, Coop quickly returns to his old habits involving drugs and alcohol, forgetting the promise he made to God when his life was in danger,

     Soon, Coop is violently attacked by a rogue shark and badly injured. Soon after his recovery a serial murderer begins to terrorize the beach community. The killer's calling card, a shark's tooth left deep inside the terrible wounds.

     Coop is quickly arrested, convicted and sent to death row. He has not spoken in months. A kindly preacher gradually gets Coop and attention and with the help of a jail guard Coop is led to Christianity. Coop spends his time on death row studying the Bible and helping to convert the young men on either side of him. All along, he is doubtful of his guilt in the murders but because of the drugs, he cannot be sure.

     A prison psychiatrist sees the doubt in Coop's eyes, helps fund a new investigation and marries him on his release. Soon the murders have begun again. Is Coop a sick and sadistic killer with no memory, or is something much more evil at work here?

     This was a very interesting and fast moving book. The religion part threw me off at first, but soon I was concentrating on the story and accepting it as simply an element of the book.