Hater

Starred review from December 15, 2008
Originally self-published, Moody's nail-biter of a debut plausibly creates a nightmare world. Danny McCoyne, an employee of the Parking Fine Processing office in an unnamed, possibly British city, barely manages to support his wife and children. Things get a lot worse after incidents of random violence escalate to a condition that threatens the social fabric of the country. Those afflicted with the violent impulse are dubbed Haters. The rapid onset of the disorder, exacerbated by the frighteningly inadequate government response, leaves Danny and his family virtual prisoners in their own home. While the major twist and the final payoff aren't particularly surprising, the sections building up to them perfectly evoke the quiet desperation of an ordinary life. Moody might have been better off explaining less, but this intelligent, well-written chiller heralds a significant new talent. Guillermo Del Toro has bought film rights.

Starred review from December 15, 2008
One day Danny McCoynes life tends toward the humdrum: job, family, the usual. The next day, suddenly, without warning or explanation, people are turning into killers, murdering their loved ones, attacking perfect strangers. Soon Danny is trying desperately to keep his family safe, while all around him society seems to be self-destructing, as ordinary men and women turn into animals, filled with hate and violence. This is a truly frightening book because, like Danny, were constantly scrambling to process whats going on. Moody, who self-published the novel in 2006, writes as though his novel were a zombie movie, and readers familiar with the genre will have no difficulty seeing, in their minds eye, the rapid dissolution of society played out in front of them. (Is it purely a coincidence that the protagonist has the same first name as Danny Boyle, director of the movie 28 Days Later, whose zombielike creatures were infected with something that filled them with uncontrollable rage?) Its a risky undertaking, giving literary form to a type of story that is traditionally told in pictures, but Moody completely pulls it off. The movie rights to the book have been sold, and itll be interesting to see if the film is as good as the novel. Its hard to imagine how it could be.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)