Zombie!
1981 St. Martin’s Press
Paperback, 183 pages
Do not go into this
expecting some Romero-esque gut munching. This is a solid voodoo story taking
place on a small Caribbean Island. Fear not, I know Tremayne (Peter Berresford
Ellis) tends to overwrite the history and topography of his exotic locales, but
he sums up the specifics of St. Miquelon in a few pages.
June Lambert gets a letter from
her grandmother with an invite to meet her on the tiny island that her late parents
grew up on but eventually fled. June never knew she had a grandmother.
With her husband Steve, they make plans to visit Grandma for a tropical
vacation with visions in inheritances dancing in their heads. But things aren’t
very rosy in St. Miquelon when they arrive. Being outsiders, they aren’t welcome
and there is political upheaval in the air.
Well, Grandma is already dead.
And has been for a while. Her estate is in ruins and the Lamberts find
themselves stuck there. The few friendly townsfolk can offer little help and it
seems that June is the key to an intricate plot to strengthen Mama Mambo. When
June disappears, it is up to Steve to sort things out. And to try to figure out
who is decent and who is a part of the wicked plot as the lines between the two
sides blur.
OK, first off… Steve is a dick.
He is rude and short tempered, and I disliked him long before I realized he was
going to be our hero. Also, I was halfway through the book before I realized
that nothing had really happened yet. Tremayne books are very hit or miss with
me but this one falls somewhere in between. Not a steaming pile of shit like Kiss of the Cobra but also not a
quality read like Swamp or Snowbeast. Zombie! Is middling
and kind of boring but not so dull as to give up on it. The ending is the most
preposterous bit of convenience that I have read outside of comic books.
First published in 1981 by
Sphere Books, I grabbed 1987 St. Martins edition (1st US printing) thanks
to the gaudy and misleading cover of a savage rotting zombie. I do not know who
the artist is, but I figured it was worth the $3 price tag. Not a great book,
not a bad one. I’ll keep it for the cover.
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