Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Reviews

Book Review: The Panama Laugh

By Sandy Amazeen Nov 30, 2011, 2:50 GMT

Ex-mercenary, pirate, and gun-runner Dante Bogart knows he\'\'s screwed the pooch after he hands one of his shady employers a biological weapon that made the dead rise from their graves, laugh like hyenas, and feast upon the living. Dante tried to blow the whistle via a tell-all video that went viral - but that was before the black ops boys deep-sixed him at a secret interrogation site on the ...more

A hard driven pace, laughing zombies, mercenaries, crime lords and an amnesiac, what’s not to like! Six weeks after the zombie apocalypse swept the world, Dante “Frosty” Bogart finds himself naked in the jungle with no memory of how he got there or indeed, anything from the previous five years. Bogart struggles simply to stay alive, find a safe haven and avoid being bitten by zombies but it is imperative that he locate friends and regain those lost memories. The problem with memories is Bogart’s suspicions about his involvement with the apocalypse may be confirmed.

Roche throws some inventive, sometimes chilling new twists to the zombie genre while creating a dynamite, tightly written action tale full of deadly weaponry and splatters. The character development and world building is top-notch as San Francisco and Panama are brought to life. Plentiful quips help lighten the tone and make no mistake, there is a full measure of gore presented in this complex story yet it doesn’t feel contrived or out of place. Only the rapidly shifting perspectives between present day and flashbacks take away from what is surely one of the best zombie books released this year.