Michael C. (mcrow) - , reviewed on 4/2/2009

Helpful Score: 2

Dead City by Joe McKinney is an action packed zombie novel and a strong first novel. Dead City has all the action you could want out of a zombie book and the main character is pretty well fleshed out. If Dead City has any true weakness, it's the lack of depth in the setting and the story may be a little bit too straight forward.

The story follows Eddie, a San Antonio cop, as tries to survive the zombie hordes and tries to get home to his Wife and child. Along the way he has to overcome some hard decisions and at times trust people who he normally wouldn't.

Dead City scores big points for action and gore content. The action scenes are exciting; fast paced, and keeps the pages turning. Gore is frequent and vivid. I have heard others say that this would make for a great movie, I have to agree. With the amount of action, the compelling action, and the way each scene cuts away it would make for a great film. Hopefully, some day, we'll see a movie happen.

My only reservations about Dead City are that the setting is little blurry, characters beyond the Eddie are weak and it doesn't make you think. There is enough there that nothing seems out of context, but it also left me asking a lot of questions. Eddie is truly a great character, but beyond him, the rest are fairly uninteresting but serve a purpose. This is no philosophical zombie novel, that's for sure. It's not really required for a zombie novel to be a great read, but it is nice when you do read one that gets the brain ticking. These are all pretty minor issues and in fact may not bother many readers at all.

In the end Dead City is well worth a read for it's sheer master of action and gore in a zombie novel. I cannot think of a reason why a fan of zombie fiction would be disappointed with this book.

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