Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry (pub date 10/25/11)
Believe it or not, this was actually my first experience with reading one of Jonathan Maberry’s books. I got to meet him at BEA (awesome!) and I was psyched to pick up an advance copy of this book. In fact I got the last copy…double awesome. Maybe now I’ll finally sit down and read the extremely popular Patient Zero.
Giving a nod to George Romero, Dead of Night is set in western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Convicted murderer Homer Gibbon has just been executed by lethal injection. Only what no one knows is that the prison doctor injected Gibbon with something else: a drug meant to keep his consciousness awake while his body decays. Presumed to have no family, Gibbon was set to be buried in a pauper’s grave and soon forgotten. But when an estranged relative comes forward to claim the body and takes it back to her home town, Gibbon awakens as a zombie and spreads his infection throughout the town.
Our heroes are Desdemona (Dez) Fox, a small-town cop who’s devoted to her job but carries a lot of emotional baggage; and Billy Trout, a no-name local reporter who discovers the truth about what really happened to Homer Gibbon. Dez is a great character. She’s a ’take no prisoners’ kind of girl who’s brave and tough but also human. While most protagonists in zombie stories are male, it’s refreshing to see a chick take charge now and then.
Believe it or not, this was actually my first experience with reading one of Jonathan Maberry’s books. I got to meet him at BEA (awesome!) and I was psyched to pick up an advance copy of this book. In fact I got the last copy…double awesome. Maybe now I’ll finally sit down and read the extremely popular Patient Zero.
Giving a nod to George Romero, Dead of Night is set in western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Convicted murderer Homer Gibbon has just been executed by lethal injection. Only what no one knows is that the prison doctor injected Gibbon with something else: a drug meant to keep his consciousness awake while his body decays. Presumed to have no family, Gibbon was set to be buried in a pauper’s grave and soon forgotten. But when an estranged relative comes forward to claim the body and takes it back to her home town, Gibbon awakens as a zombie and spreads his infection throughout the town.
Our heroes are Desdemona (Dez) Fox, a small-town cop who’s devoted to her job but carries a lot of emotional baggage; and Billy Trout, a no-name local reporter who discovers the truth about what really happened to Homer Gibbon. Dez is a great character. She’s a ’take no prisoners’ kind of girl who’s brave and tough but also human. While most protagonists in zombie stories are male, it’s refreshing to see a chick take charge now and then.
What I enjoyed most about Dead of Night was how Maberry tried to add some originality to the zombie genre. In a market that’s already pretty well saturated with zombie stories, this book tries to be creative in explaining how the zombies were created. Most similar stories usually rely on the old “it’s a virus” or “nobody knows” explanations, but Maberry combined theoretical science with cultural beliefs in coming up with a zombie origin.
I have to say that The Walking Dead (the graphic novel and the show) is still my personal favorite zombie tale. But if you’re a fan of the genre you’ll definitely enjoy Dead of Night. And if there are any Jonathan Maberry fans reading this, please comment and let everyone know how you think this book compares to his previous ones!
