REVIEW: The Unwashed Dead by: Ian Woodhead
Plot: In the quiet and bucolic estate of Breakspear, somewhere in the North of England, townsfolk are having problems with the newly risen Dead. It turns out the Government has been using the town as a testing ground for a new chemical weapon, and now they want to erase all traces of the incident. Will anyone survive the night?
Review: First, the good news. In THE UNWASHED DEAD, Ian Woodhead has crafted a sharp and effective tale of a zombie uprising in an isolated and run-down British estate. The plot is fairly straightforward. Breakspear, an isolated and decaying little hamlet, is suddenly overrun by the newly risen. The story follows the exploits of various townsfolk as they try to survive the sudden onslaught. The town is filled with people that aren’t typical cardboard cutouts. These could be the residents of any small town in any country. Every character seemed to be genuinely fleshed out, even the ones whose motives aren’t entirely clear. Some people, when faced with crisis, will take the noble and heroic route. Not every character will, however, and there is a great example of a character whose development takes him in unexpected directions. Woodhead takes his time to introduce us to these people before unleashing his zombie goodness upon them. It was nice to see some attention paid to creating characters that aren’t a walking cliché. The Dialogue has an honest ring to it, which I was grateful for. These were all characters you could sympathize with and root for.
Where Woodhead really scores is in the tension department. He creates a very subtle aura of dread and menace that explodes across the page when the zombie carnage hits full throttle. I cringed at the scenes of zombies pulling unsuspecting people under cars where they could feed. As if I didn’t have enough to be paranoid about, now I have something else to keep me awake at night. *shudder*. The kills are vicious and sometimes pleasantly unexpected, and the gore quotient is high without bordering on the unnecessary.
There were a few things nagged at me however. I cannot hold this against this author, but THE UNWASHED DEAD is a very British story. It took me awhile to finish the story as I found myself constantly stopping to look up words and phrases I was unfamiliar with. That isn’t a knock against the story, but some American readers might have some of the finer points of the dialogue lost in translation. There were also a few instances of clunky narration that bogged that threatened to bog the story down. Luckily, these moments were brief as there was always fresh carnage just around the corner. One point that I wish I had been clarified better was the issue with the Mercenaries. Who sent them? Why would the Government hire mercenaries to clean up a mess of that magnitude? Without better context, it seemed like they were just inserted into the story as an excuse to kill civilians.
Overall, THE UNWASHED DEAD is a high-quality entry into the Zombie canon. Yes, some of the descriptions and slang that was utilized took a bit to get used to. Don’t let that deter you. This is a good, snappy read, and it is definitely worth your time to check out.
Available at Amazon.
