“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 for PNR Reviews”