Fall of Night

July 28, 2014
Maberry continues his zombie apocalypse series with this harrowing, gory adventure, which picks up immediately after the events of 2011’s Dead of Night. Caught at the epicenter of a viral outbreak that turns humans into shambling monsters, police officer Dez Fox and reporter Billy Trout must try to keep hundreds of survivors alive. Mishandling by the military and the government allows undead serial killer Homer Gibbon, originator of the plague, to slip through this quarantine and doom humanity. While the depiction of the collapse of society is textbook and the condemnation of the government unsubtle, Maberry excels at humanizing the plague’s victims, both living and dead. Naturally, readers shouldn’t get too attached to any specific character. Overlapping characters explicitly connect the story to Maberry’s Joe Ledger books and anticipate his Rot & Ruin YA series, proving that while the immediate outcome is bleak, there’s still hope for the future. Messy, tense, and highly atmospheric, this is a perfect example of zombie action. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger.

September 1, 2014
The apocalypse goes viral in the sequel to the gorefest Dead of Night (2011) as a viral outbreak and a hurricane wreak havoc on Stebbins, Pennsylvania. Less a sequel than just another chapter in the large-scale zombie-infested world drawn by Maberry (Fire & Ash, 2013, etc.), this bloody, violent and testosterone-filled epic still teeters on the verge of parody, style-wise, but remains popcorn-shoveling awesome for fans of George Romero and The Evil Dead. To recap, a mad scientist created a virus called Lucifer 113 as a punishment for serial killer Homer Gibbon, the "patient zero" of the outbreak. Police officer Desdemona Fox is protecting survivors in a small school along with online hack Billy Trout. After already attacking the school once, the White House has ordered a media blackout as authorities deal with a superstorm and contemplate dropping thermobaric bombs to wipe out everyone. Meanwhile, the resurrected Gibbon is spreading the faith in his own way, terrifying Trout's partner Goat Weinman. "I done this," he says. "This plague thing. It ain't no bioweapon like they're saying on the radio. It was me that done this. The black eye opened in my mind and now I speak with the voice of the red mouth." Most of the action stays with Desdemona, Homer or the White House, but Maberry also drops in gruesome but sometimes-humorous vignettes with secondary characters, always ratcheting up the gore factor to cartoonish levels. In an interesting choice, the novel also introduces a character who ties the series neatly together with Maberry's YA series, Rot and Ruin. It's all a bit over-the-top, but the vast scope of the novel makes for a satisfying contrast to the smaller-scale portrayals of similar catastrophes in The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later. The end of the world as we know it, complete with 24-style dialogue and enough oozy bits to make Tom Savini queasy.

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September 15, 2014

Picking up immediately where last year's Dead of Night left off, this title has Desdemona Fox and Billy Trout in a tough spot, holed up in a school besieged by zombies with the army looking for a way to blow them sky-high and contain the outbreak. But as long as they think Billy has the flash drives with the files containing the details of the virus, he has a bargaining chip. Unfortunately, those files are now in the hands of his friend Goat, and Goat's in the hands of crazed serial killer Homer Gibbon, the man who kicked off the epidemic. VERDICT There isn't any new ground broken here in term of zombies, but for those who enjoy high-octane apocalypse stories, this is solid entertainment, elevated by endearing characters. As the book ends in a pretty dark place, it will be exciting to see how Maberry ("Pine Deep" trilogy) continues Fox and Trout's story.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
Maberry does some of his best writing in this sequel to 2011's Dead of Night. This story picks up literally the moment its predecessor ended: cop Dez Fox and reporter Billy Trout are holed up in the Stebbins Little School, trying to keep the U.S. military from killing the school's 800-odd occupants. Meanwhile, outside, Fox's partner, J. T., is trying to ward off a mass of zombies. With the introduction of the characters and premise out of the wayan unbalanced scientist has injected a soon-to-be-executed serial killer with a cocktail of biological ingredients, unleashing a zombie plague upon Stebbins County, PennsylvaniaMaberry can jump right into the action. As the zombie outbreak spreads (despite the American government's homicidally best efforts to contain it), Maberry shifts his focus, alternating between his lead characters and various supporting and walk-on characterssome of the best, most visceral, and most memorable scenes involve characters we see for a very brief period of time: men and women caught up in the tidal wave of undead sweeping across the state. Maberry, no slouch when it comes to action and suspense (his Joe Ledger novels are deservedly very popular), seems to have found new energy here, as though he's been jump-started by the story he's telling. He still has a lot of books ahead of him, so calling this his masterpiece would be premature, but a case could be made that this is the bestand most terrifyingbook he's written so far.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)