Dead Man's Hand (anthology)

For other uses of the phrase Dead Man's Hand, see Dead man's hand.

Dead Man's Hand is the seventh volume in the Wild Cards shared universe series edited by George R. R. Martin. Like the previous volume in the series (Ace in the Hole), this volume uses the format of a mosaic novel, where several writers write individual storylines which were then edited together into one novel length story. Ace in the Hole and Dead Man's Hand were originally meant to be released as a single novel, but Bantam Books decided that it would be too large to release as a paperback.

Plot

The plot of Dead Man's Hand is intimately tied to that of the novel in the series, Ace in the Hole, happening roughly at the same time, but depicting the mostly NY-based investigation into the murder of a prominent Jokertown figure, Chrysalis. the plot involves a murder mystery told from two perspectives. It is a single story throughout the book.

Both Jay Ackroyd (an Ace called Popinjay with the ability to teleport people to other places) and Daniel Brennan also known as Yeoman (a "natural" vigilante who kills criminals with arrows) are trying to track down Chrysalis’ murderer. The story continually jumps from one account to the other in a sometimes confusing way as separately they go after various Joker suspects, and as both get a lot of very rough treatment and face death from homicidal Jokers a number of times.

Chrysalis gathered information on everybody so that led to a number of possible killers. She also sent an assassin to kill Gregg Hartmann, a Presidential candidate who wanted to help Jokers, which would have made her unpopular to any Joker who knew it. Hartmann is secretly a ruthless Ace known as Puppetman, an Ace who can control people and he found out and could have sent someone to murder her, since he controlled one of her assistants.

One by one, the story goes through each suspect as the two men, helped and hindered, follow their noses as clues are almost non existent. The police find out Brennan is the Yeoman and go after him. The plot is further complicated by a slug like creature which too can control people and has numerous hosts, so no one can be trusted.