Dead Mann Walking: A Hessius Mann Novel, Petrucha. Yes. Petrucha has created a unique (to my knowledge) first-person narrator in Hessius Mann. I am looking forward to the next installment to see if he can maintain the level of interest, given Tana French’s rationale in giving each of her Dublin Murder Squad books a different protagonist: it’s hard to justify life-changing events happening to the same person over and over. Some aspects of DMW resonate with another recent work I also enjoyed; I think it rather validates Petrucha’s vision that a different group of talented writers went in a similar direction given a related premise. The only passage that pulled me out of the narrative was the improper (and strained) use of “to coin a phrase.”