Suffer the Children

A few honest chills breathe a bit of much-needed life into this apocalyptic horror novel, which otherwise relies on one-dimensional characters. DiLouie (The Killing Floor) veers from his standard zombie fare to the more domestic question of how parents will react to children rising from the dead. This stellar premise is at first genuinely devastating as all the world’s children succumb to Herod’s Syndrome, and then undeniably hair-raising as they all return to life. But when their parents learn that the children must drink blood in order to stay alive, they enter a plodding cycle of needing blood, getting blood, and being horrified by their own actions. Further hamstringing the effort are DiLouie’s inelegantly sketched cast. David, a sympathetic doctor, and his disturbingly fervent wife, Nadine, are tolerable, but sly gender coding contrasts stolid, God-fearing housewife Joan and her hyper-masculine husband with Ramona, a shrill single mother who is giddily intimidated and aroused by her male employee. Religious overtones and lots of gunplay will further limit the appeal of this disjointed novel. (May)