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Dead of Night
Jonathan Maberry
Horror, Zombies

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.

This book broke away from every expectation I had and I mean that entirely in a good way.

Dead of Night rekindled the zombie loving passion in me. The author played with a few different concepts I've mulled over but never seen done, such as the zombie that retains its human mind as it's biting and devouring people. When I received the book and read the words "two small-town cops" I didn't expect much to come from that since it's typically a played out concept for dull cookie-cutter characters, almost always heterosexual white men. But Maberry took a gun to my expectations by introducing a diverse cast who made me want to root for them--especially spitefire Dez Fox, who was a far more rounded character than one usually finds in zombie thrillers.

The ending was what made this novel for me. The first three quarters of the book, while excellent and fast-paced and exciting, were merely a set-up leading us down the road to a showdown which certainly had my heart pumping. And I know it's past Halloween but any time is a good time to get into the zombie spirit.

Trigger warning for violence.