Zombies and alien fiends attack in force in this Michael Bay–style actioner.
A small-town sheriff is the first to discover the incredible truth behind a zombie plague in Chatman’s debut horror novel.
In Ghostwood, West Virginia, widowed Navy SEAL–turned-sheriff Thomas Pratt is distracted from his difficulty parenting his teenage son and daughter by a more urgent crisis. People are being bitten by grotesque, antlike insects and quickly turning into “Spewers”—superstrong and superfast undead who vomit more bugs and spread the contagion. They can be destroyed, though—mainly with gunshots to the head. (Oddly, no one uses the Z-word to describe the infected.) Within days, society collapses as the plague reaches Washington, D.C., but battle-hardened Thomas and other select, die-hard Ghostwood citizens persist—along with savvy street-gang members, military holdouts, and survivalists. Readers are tipped off from the start that a cabal of scientists is behind the coordinated onslaught of insects and infected humans—and when Thomas actually meets the conspirators, they’re revealed to have highly unusual origins. The author doles out numerous scenes of gruesome violence, including torture. However, he stops short of the grindhouse-level gore that one often sees in the zombie subgenre (no chainsaw-wielding cheerleaders here). Indeed, characters reverently invoke God and eschew profane language in favor of soldierly lingo: “We will infiltrate at first light to reduce the chances of enemy contact due to the deadly effect the sun has on them. Two teams, Alpha and Bravo team.” Still, an infusion of sci-fi villainy shifts this material from a tense, straightforward George A. Romero–style tone into comic-book territory, with superbeings laying smack downs on one another amid heroic and vainglorious firefights. The finale is sequel-friendly, indeed. (Not to be confused with 2013’s The Spread, a different zombie-themed novel by Michelle Kilmer and Rebecca Hansen.)
Zombies and alien fiends attack in force in this Michael Bay–style actioner.Pub Date: April 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64214-161-0
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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