Undead on Arrival Delivers the Gory Goods

I posted this on my Goodreads account on August 15.  My friend Justin Robinson wrote this book and honestly it's amazing.  Cross-posting here.

********


I picked up this book last night, started in on the second chapter, and didn't stop turning pages until I was finished, if that tells you anything about how much I liked this book.  It's a classic noir murder mystery set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, chronicling the tale of Glen Novak attempting to solve his own murder before being devoured by the zombie plague he has been purposely infected with.

I'm not normally into noir or murder mysteries (I enjoy them, but I've never focused on them particularly), but this one was great.  The writing wastes zero time.   It is, in the truest of sense of the phrase, all killer no filler.   The setting is a small coastal town in California that's managed to work out a semi-stable sense of order within it's walls, although one that turns out to be completely illusory.  The tensions in the town are well balanced between the ever-present worry of an undead swarm and the political tension between the town's power players: the wealthy elitists on the hill, the religious tribe in the town, and Novak's smaller contingent of free-thinking, free-loving, free-maiming pragmatists.  And the basic tension that kept me turning the pages, was wondering what was going to destroy Novak first:  his bite, the undead, the bloody political machinations of the town, or the way he kept making bruised, enraged enemies with his fists.

If you're not into bloody depictions of gore and horror, then this may not be the book for you.  Novak isn't really the kind of guy who fucks around, and once his death warrant is signed, less so.  But, if that kind of thing is up your alley, Jesus does this book deliver.  The zombie (or "geeks") mythology is well-designed, the action sequences are frequent and fun, and Glen's desire for bloody revenge eventually snowballs into a blood-soaked, body-stacked finale that left me wanting to smoke a cigarette.  Or to take up smoking 5 years previously so I could close the book, light up, take a long drag and slowly exhale while saying, "Oh yeah, that hit the spot."

If you like zombies, if you like murder mysteries, if you light tight, well-crafted stories that don't waste your time, pick this book up immediately.