"An outstanding alien romance!"
Christmas in Bahia Vista, Florida was not shaping up to be
very merry for Homicide Detective Sergeant Theo Patrakos. On
top of having to endure the matchmaking efforts of his
friends after his divorce from the beautiful and faithless
Camille, the suspicious death of one Dan J. Wayne has him
completely baffled. Never before had he seen a mummified
corpse with moist eyeballs. Even in this subtropical
environment it would take weeks for a body to mummify and
witnesses had seen the victim alive two days ago. More
puzzling was the strange technological equipment found in
the victims dwelling. Hopefully once he got the peculiar
looking laptop to the station he'd have some answers. But
things got a lot more complicated after he made a short
detour to his own home. It's been two days since the Guardian Force of the Chalvash
Interplanetary Concord stationed on the spaceship Sakanah
received communication from their zombie tracker, Danjay
Wain on the nil-tech world named after dirt. Fearing the
worst, Commander Jorie Mikkalah and her team are sent down
to investigate. Following Wain's T-MOD unit's signal leads
them to an Earth dwelling, the home of Theo Patrakos. Before
Jorie can recover the unit, the signal triggers a zombie
attack and Theo finds himself transported back to their
spaceship along with the aliens. Because Jorie can speak Vekran, which is closely
translatable to English, Theo soon learns of the new threat
to his world. Jorie is no stranger to warfare after six
years of fighting with the Interplanetary Marines during the
Tresh Border Wars, but that is nothing compared to what they
are facing with the zombies. Zombies are mech-organic
entities produced by her government to monitor commercial
traffic in the spacelanes for viral contaminants and defend
the Hatches. They operated in herds directed by the largest,
the C-Prime. But either through natural mutation or enemy
tampering the zombies had been altered and no longer
accepted orders from the Guardians. They had become monsters
drawn to the life force of soft-fleshed sentients. Jorie
stands to win a captaincy if she can eliminate the threat.
But the worst thing he learns is that if he cannot convince
Jorie and her Captain to send him back, his world will have
to face the menace without him. Nope there's no flashy thing
to erase his memory. If things go according to regulations
he's about to be forcibly relocated to Paroo, a paradise
world to be sure, but as they say there's no place like home. Although Captain Pietr has serious doubts about Jorie's
suspicions of enemy involvement, he allows her to return
with Theo and her team to investigate and resolve the zombie
situation. It doesn't take long before Theo's faith in
beautiful women has been restored while Jorie learns that a
Nil with a "very good face" can also be courageous warrior.
Now with more than a mere promotion vested in their success,
she will do whatever it takes to save his world and the love
of her life. With Jorie's ex-lover Lorik feeding Pietr's skepticism, one
teammate vying for the captainship and her affections while
the other is recovering from the debilitating effects of an
enemy implant, and Theo's busybody neighbor and well meaning
friends and relatives always checking up on them, this
unlikely couple has their work cut out for them. Fortunately
Earth isn't lacking for heroes to help save the day, once
they are clued in that Jorie is from a little further north
than Canada of course. Realistic characters, romance, humor, conflict and suspense,
what more could a paranormal fan ask for in a sf/futuristic
novel? Hm, well a little mood music perhaps, but then Ms.
Sinclair has that covered as well. Readers of THE DOWN HOME
ZOMBIE BLUES can listen to the song by the same name by
visiting the author's website. Very Cool! This read is a keeper.
Reviewed by Leslie Tramposch
Posted October 1, 2007
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