they are awesome. The novel is, 30K into it, finally coming together. The shape of the final plot is in my head, the characters have all taken the stage at one time or another, and there was 23 dead bodies so far. (Of which one has returned as a zombie and the other been killed twice actually. He just keeps healing.)
I left for work (gotta hate that) knowing the shape of the whole plot, and where everyone is going and why. Some details are unknown - one MC may or may not die - but the general gist of the plot is here, makes sense, and I am getting the fun feeling of being more the first reader of the novel than the actual writer.
And, scarily, a third novel in the "series" is shaping up in my head, using one of the secondary characters from this novel as the MC. Since this novel comes from using Pat (a secondary character in Waking The Dead) as the MC, it seems I'm creating a fun tradition. They aren't sequels, but they are making use of the same world and reference previous events from time to time. (But not enough that reading the previous novels would be mandatory. I detest that :)).
Now, off to continue the morgue scene.
