cover image Wet Work

Wet Work

Philip Nutman. Jove Books, $4.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-515-11115-6

This apocalyptic horror story is set during the Bush Administration but in the very near future. As a spectacular comet passes the earth, it leaves in its trail a virus that infects humans. The virus causes the dead to resurrect and become cannibalistic zombies, while the living contract a debilitating sickness. In the space of days, major population areas worldwide are gripped with panic and rioting as the newly undead search out human flesh for their insatiable appetites. Those who can attempt to escape to the countryside. In gory interludes that become repetitive, Nutman's ghouls spring back to life and dine on whatever human is in their path. At the center of the story is Dominic Corvino, a U.S. covert agent and assassin. After dying in a political intrigue, he is resurrected and makes his way to CIA headquarters to find the country now in control of zombies like himself. Corvino, though, is more interested in resolving his psychological travails and avenging the deaths of former lovers than embracing the ugliness of the New Order. Nutman's first novel is a preachy commentary on greed and male anomie in the 1980s. (June)