Book Review: Z Is For Zombie by Theodore Roscoe

Z Is For Zombie by Theodore Roscoe

John Ranier is ship's surgeon on a cruise line going back and forth from New York City to Haiti. He was a hot-shot doctor but ran into some trouble. His new career has him handing out seasick pills and hangover cures. Naturally, when they are at port he heads to a local bar to deal with his troubles (or maybe perpetuate them?). He gets a little plastered and has a fight with Haarman, a passenger from the ship who is also having drinks. Haarman throws Rainer out of the bar, knocking Ranier out. He comes to quickly and returns to the bar, where a large group of passengers has joined Haarman for a drinking party before they drive to Port au Prince for some business. Haarman looks deathly pale and doesn't say much. The group discovers that Haarman has been stabbed in the back and is dying! They rush him to a nearby hospital of Dr. Eberhardt and his nurse Lais Engels. The doctor is out and Ranier, who has hitched a ride on the big car carrying everyone, is pressed into service to help the near corpse. Haarman dies and the nurse identifies him as a man who died fourteen years ago on Haiti during a small plague outbreak. She and Dr. Eberhardt buried the victims in a string of cemeteries so as not to worry the local population. Things get weird as the local lore of zombie resuscitation is brought up and, in the distance, locals start incessantly drumming. The group discovers the upstairs laboratory has been ransacked, with some human hands boiling over a bunsen burner and a frog impaled on a nail where usual the doctor should have left a note of his whereabouts for the nurse. Everyone starts pointing fingers. They decide to investigate the cemeteries for some sort of clues.

The book is a blend of horror and crime noir. Ranier is in the role of the Sam-Spade-like detective though he is not as familiar with doing investigations and is still a little inebriated. He has a thing for the nurse which does not go anywhere other than providing a dame for him to protect. The mystery is quite convoluted requiring several chapters of exposition at the end to explain what really happened. It's not the most convincing, especially given Ranier's lack of expertise, but ties up most of what seem like plot holes in the story. The atmosphere is rich and noir-y, pairing well with the horror elements of the story. The attitude towards the locals is a little racist, though the bigotry is in the characters, not the narrative. The story is told from Ranier's perspective though he is not giving a first-person narration. The book has a bit more noir than it does zombies.

Mildly recommended--this isn't quite satisfying as a zombie story or as a crime noir but makes for an interesting blend.

I read this as part of Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! edited by Otto Pensler.

Book Review: Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! ed. by Otto Pensler

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!  The Most Complete Collection of ZOMBIE Stories Ever Published edited with an introduction by Otto Pensler

This 800-page tome contains dozens upon dozens of stories about the living dead, the unspeakable horrors that rise from their graves and shamble around. The first excerpt is from W. B. Seabrook, who describes practices in Haiti where the dead are brought back to life and made to work on the plantations. The only way for these zombies to return to their graves is if they eat food with salt, then they realize that they are dead and return to the cemetery where they belong. These people are not insatiable cannibals, nor do they have any intellect or will. This first concept of zombiehood dominated the culture until the 1960s, when George Romero introduced a new type of risen dead--the ravenously hungry who had a taste only for human flesh. The whole "brains" thing didn't start until the 1980s with Return of the Living Dead, an uneven horror-comedy with one zombie who explains why they have an insatiable hunger. In the 2000s, the virus/high-speed zombies showed up in movies like 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. This book reflects the cinematic history of zombies, with stories from the 1800s (pre-dating the term "zombie" with stories from Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant--the undead was a thing long before the z-word came along) up to the 2000s.

Like any anthology, the collection is a mixed bag. Some stories are strictly gory (which I don't find interesting), one or two were borderline pornographic (which is also not to my taste). Most were more palatable, focusing on horror and dread. A few were comic, like Robert Bloch's "Maternal Instinct." Some classics are in there, like H. P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West--Reanimator" and Henry Kuttner's "Graveyard Rats." Other famous authors like Stephen King and Harlan Ellison have contributions. My favorite stories were F. Marion Crawford's "Upper Berth" and Hug B. Cave's "Mission to Margal," with at least twenty other ones that I really liked. The book ends with the short novel "Z Is For Zombie" by Theodore Roscoe, which will be reviewed separately. The mixed bag definitely favors stories that I enjoyed. I am hanging on to this volume!

Recommended for a scattershot of zombie goodness and badness, but mostly goodness.