“Dead City” is a fantastic, balls-to-the-wall tale of survival horror that starts with a bang and never lets up. Occupying the middle ground between police procedural and zombie thriller, Joe McKinney’s first novel is the tale of a lone patrolman searching for his family over the course of one horrific night.
The time is now: Texas has been pummeled by a series of brutal hurricanes, with refugees scattered across the Lone Star State in search of shelter. Many of them have settled in San Antonio, inadvertently bringing a new kind of plague with them: one that transforms those infected into bloodthirsty zombies.
Patrolman Eddie Hudson, a young man with a wife and newborn baby, is working the evening shift when all hell breaks loose. Dispatched to what he thinks is a simple fistfight, Hudson finds himself plunged head-first into the apocalypse.
Confronted with the ravenous infected, Hudson barely escapes with his life – only to find that the entire city has succumbed to the zombie onslaught.
Hudson is suddenly alone, and thousands of zombies stand between him and his family. He might just see them again, if he can survive the night.
Hudson’s story is a real thrill for the reader, jam-packed with fast driving, shooting, desperate stand-offs and lots of blood. McKinney, a San Antonio homicide detective by trade, writes with an authenticity that brings the events of “Dead City” to bloody, grasping life.
I was looking for a good book when I read your review so I bought it. I'm about 40 pages in and it's not too bad. The author does a good job of mixing real world w/media right away. That's a problem I seem to encounter a lot when writing horror fiction---at what point does a typical 21st century person say, "holy crap, they're zombies, just like in Night of the Living Dead!" as opposed to 1980s horror where the protag has apparently never watched a horror movie and always wants to deny what is happening or refuses to see the obvious---"they're drinking blood, afraid of crosses, and harmed by sunlight, but they CAN'T be vampires, because vampires don't exist!"
Pete
Keep reading. They cover that!