I've never been a fan of the star rating system on this site. I don't think a range of five is nearly broad enough to really summarize my overall feelings on a book. Hell, TEN isn't even enough. If I could rate this book on a scale of 1 to 20, I'd say 14. On a scale of 1 to 10: 7. On a scale of 1 to 5: 3 1/2. I'm certain the ratios are a bit off, but more importantly I hope my feelings are clear. "Dead Man Rising" is a decent enough sophomore effort by Saintcrow, but I felt it was slower paced in comparison to "Working for the Devil." That may have been my warped perception, however, because I kept anticipating an event to take place, and while I found everything happening in the book interesting, the plot couldn't move fast enough toward this thing I wanted so badly. Once I let go of my constant anticipation, I found I enjoyed the story a lot more, and was able to appreciate how it was unfolding before me. 
 In this installment of the series, Dante is considerably depressed and struggles with her feelings quite a bit. When a series of murders in Saint City resurfaces the painful history of her past, Dante's angst and martyr-complex kicks into overdrive. If you found these aspects of this character frustrating in the first book, you might want to skip out on this one, because Dante's pain and suffering practically cries right off the pages. The redundant thinking that I noted in my review for the first book is still present in this one, but I found it less frustrating as there were less instances of Dante repeating aloud her internal thoughts verbatim. Dante's depression isolates her from the rest of the cast, so there wasn't as much interaction with others, with the exception of Jace, and even then their interactions weren't especially long or numerous. Character development for the auxiliary cast was minimal at best. All that said, we spend a lot more time with just Dante narrating, and that in turn affords us with a more detailed view of her world. I almost feel like DMD was Saintcrow taking the time to better round out the cyberpunk setting. We meet some new characters in this book, some of whom I find fairly interesting, and I hope they make a return in other books. The climax, just as the first book, was suitably epic and a fantastic arrival to catharsis. 
 So all this said, I'll admit that it did take a level of patience for me to finish "Dead Man Rising", but I still blasted through it, and in the end I was thoroughly satisfied.