Dead Beat [Paperback]

I received a message from Iain McKinnon asking if it is okay to pass along my contact information to an author looking for exposure. He also mentioned that the author, Remy Porter, was getting ready to release his first novel and wanted me to write a review for it. I agreed and a few days later I was contacted by Mr. Porter. We exchanged messages for a few days then I received an advanced copy of Dead Beat.

Johnny Silverman is a police officer in a small town. He patrols his route and the day seems to be just another day. Suddenly, a plague washes over the town turning anyone infected into a cannibalistic monster. Johnny finds himself in the middle of the carnage while responding to a disturbance at the Tomlinson's small supermarket. There, Johnny's nightmare begins. He creeps up towards the Tomlinson's shop and is met by Mrs. Tomlinson, the widow who has run the shop for the passed five years. Before Johnny could determine what has happened to her, she leaps toward him. If it wasn't for his baton, Johnny's tale would have ended there.

Knowing that there is a problem Johnny escapes with his life and heads for the police station. Once there he finds with another fellow survivor, Summer Harris. She has been sobbing and hiding, waiting for someone to help her. They team up in order to figure out what is happening to the world. Lester, the town drunk and troublemaker, had been recently arrested and is inside a holding cell. The two do not trust Lester but they share a common enemy, the living dead. After Lester fixes a CB radio the group receives a call from other survivors.

Johnny and Sarah leave Lester behind and attempt to reach the newly found survivors. The groups meet up but this group of people is not what they seem to be. Their attempts of creating a safe haven are turned into a disastrous cluster as a farmer and his surviving son attempted to control the community. The group begins to crumble as infighting and skirmishes with the undead become more common. Johnny and this group of survivors must do everything they can to survive.

To my surprise Dead Beat was a fun and enjoyable read. The plot is a fantastic idea, and as I continued it felt like I was reading something out of a Stephen King novel. I loved the protagonist, Johnny, and I also enjoyed the wittiness of Lester. The novel takes unexpected turns that cause more drama for the characters and leaves the reader gripping the pages for more. The action scenes were something I haven't experienced in a long, some novels lack on this but Dead Beat does not. The zombies are sprinters and as my followers know I don't really care for them but Porter does a superb job bring the terror that comes with a fast zombie.

Like most first time novels there are a few complaints. First I have to mention that the PDF I received is an advanced copy. The publisher did mention that a final edit needed to be done so there would be minor spelling mistakes. What I read would not be considered minor spelling errors. The book needs to be edited a few more times. The wrong word is used in so many pages and some sentences need to be revised. I would be reading and immediately have to stop because the flow of the story is interrupted by an off sentence. Hopefully the editor would catch them before the book goes to print. I tried ignoring the errors because I knew the PDF was a draft but these blunders are regular occurrences. Something else that I have to point out is when I began reading the book it did not grab my attention. I was thinking to myself `man, it's going to be one of those stories.' I continued reading and on about chapter three the story blew my mind. Once the reader gets passed the initial opening they're in for a treat.

Dead Beat was an enjoyable read. Even though I'm not a fan of sprinters and the flow of the story was rough at times, I have to say that this book is at the top of my favorite first time novels. The plot was fun and the characters were genuine but not over the top. Maybe Lester was but I've known people like him in real life. I will have to give Dead Beat a welcoming 4 Undead Heads out of 5.

Johnny Silverman is a policeman in a small town in rural England when the dead begin to rise. The reader is provided with a minor hint as to why this has happened, but for the most part, the plague that has caused the dead to come back to life is a mystery as we watch a few select people turning into zombies before all hell breaks loose across the countryside. Johnny is checking things out in a store when a woman inside attacks him. He narrowly escapes with his life and manages to get back to the police station, where Summer, a support officer, and Lester, the town drunk, barricade themselves inside while things go to hell quickly outdoors. At the same time, Jack Nation, a farmer, and his son Griffin, are coming to grips with this new plague as well. But despite the horrors they face, them seem more than willing to take advantage of the situation and bring many of the survivors together to build a fence around the town to prevent more of the dead from entering the area as they clear out the the undead from the town and surrounding region.

As Johnny and his compatriots start to sort things out in town, Jack and his son begin to thrive in a thuggish new world they have created, which doesn't need the likes of people like Johnny and the laws he tries to enforce. Given that most of the people in town have fearfully thrown in with Jack, there is little that Johnny can do as the farmer becomes more and more willing to enforce his own laws and rules, ruthlessly if needed, to keep everyone following his orders.

Dead Beat is a fairly accurate title for this book, because Johnny has no beat anymore-the town is no longer his, and since Summer and him are the only remaining law enforcement personnel, they are seen as a threat to the new order. On the few occasions that he attempts to step in and assert himself as an authority, it doesn't go over too well, and at one point I was shocked at how willing he was to give in to the demands of Jack and his depraved son. The author does a good job of giving Johnny a real human side to him. He doesn't strike me as much of a hero, just a guy trying to hold things together and survive with both the dead and the living threatening him at every turn. And until things really fall apart for him, he doesn't make a huge effort to stop Jack in his depraved ways, and by then, it seems clear that it will all end in tears for just about everyone still alive.

The author switches from third to first person, with the sections of the book with Johnny in them being told from his perspective. The story flows well from one perspective to the other and that wasn't an issue for me. I do pride myself on being able to pick up on British slang for the most part as an American reader, but even so, it was a bit tough in places to know with one hundred percent accuracy what the author was saying. I don't say that as a deterrent, because the language variations don't detract from the story at all, they just forced me to pay a bit closer attention. All in all, this was a good zombie story with compelling characters. As is my tendency, I prefer character driven zombie stories, and this one definitely falls into that category. Johnny isn't a hero by any stretch, and reveals tidbits about himself throughout the story that made it clear that he is most assuredly human and has tremendous weaknesses and even a dark side that reveals itself near the end of the tale. And despite the filthy depraved nature of Griffin and Jack, I can still see where the farmer had probably once been a good man and in his own screwed up mind was doing a good thing for the people of the community by building the fence that keeps the undead out. Lester, the town drunk who ends up sobering up in time, is another character who grew on me and proved that he wasn't one dimensional as he transformed into someone fighting to discover the cause of the plague.

Overall, an entertaining zombie read that was definitely satisfying. Plenty of gore, plenty of action, and most importantly for me, plenty of characters that kept the story interesting from beginning to end.

Remy Porter creates a dark and very scary world in this apocalypitic horror novel. He does a wonderful job with character and story development. For Example, there are a few people in his book that I am tempted to hunt down and slaughter! I hate those guys with a passion, thats the sign of a great author, making believeable characters that you love and/or hate. Thanks for writing the book Remy, it was a real treat to read it.

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