Friday, September 16, 2011

Dead of Night-Jonathan Maberry

Dead of Night


Jonathan Maberry

St. Martin’s Griffin, Oct 25 2011, $14.99

ISBN 9780312552190



At the penitentiary in Stebbins County, Pennsylvania, the prison doctor injects a serum into convicted serial killer Homer Gibbon just before his execution. The elixir is the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment as it will keep the psychopath’s brain functioning and aware while his body rots away interred in the ground.



Following the execution, at the Hartnup’s Transition Estate, Doc Lee Hartnup is bitten by Gibbon’s corpse. At the same time, local police officers Dez Fox and JT Hammond respond to a break-in at the funeral parlor. They flee from the dead coming at them.



Meanwhile Dez’s former boyfriend reporter Billy Trout investigates a report that Gibbon’s body vanished. He soon runs into the dead ripping the living. He eludes the corpses and meets up with Dez and JT. The trio quickly concludes the reanimation disease is highly contagious and the therefore the government will deploy the National Guard to contain the bioengineered toxin with no regard to those alive inside the contamination zone.



Paying homage to George Romero, Jonathan Maberry writes an exciting zombie thriller. The cause for the epidemic is stolen Cold War research used on the psychopath Gibbon. The lead protagonists possess different personalities as they conclude they are humanity’s only hope. Although somewhat similar in blood and gore as the typical zombie thriller, Dead of Night provides freshness with a deep look at the psychological impact on the three heroes and other humans who know that no matter what actions they take inevitably there is no escape; perhaps not even death.



Harriet Klausner

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