Flesh and Bone book reivew

I finally sat down and read Flesh & Bone by Jonathan Maberry.  This is the third book in the Benny Imura series and as good as any of the others.  I read it basically in two sittings and if I didn't have this damn cold I would have probably done it in one.

I won't ruin too much but the store is about a world after First Night when the zombie virus (you find out the name of the virus in this book but I won't ruin that).  We pick up after the groups adventure at Gameland.  Gameland was a sick place where kids were taken to zombie pits to fight while people made bets on the survival of the kids.  It was there that Benny's brother Tom was killed after being shot in the back.  Strangely Tom didn't reanimate as a zombie and that is where we pick up the story of Benny, Nix, Chong and the Lost Girl.

This story goes a little darker than the first two and I liked that.  I liked it because it dealt with things that zombie books often don't touch and that is grief.  Jonathan has a nice intro about it and how his own grief at the time from some personal issues were there as well.  There is talk of suicides, mass killings and the like.  Remember this is a YA, a young adult novel, so it is edgier but stuff that kids need to hear.  

You also have the introduction of a cult, a little greek history and a crossover character.  Even though it is known I won't ruin it.  I wish I hadn't heard ahead of time although if you've read some of Jonathan's other books you'd know who it was the moment the name is mentioned.  

I really don't have anything bad to say about this book, which everyone knows is rare for me.  Well may be one complaint, that I have wait over a year for what I believe is the end of Benny and Nix's journey.  I do wish I knew a little more about a few of the new characters in this book such as Mother Rose and Alexi but you've only got so much you can do or you end up like Stephen King and the books are thousands of pages.  

If you want a good fast read I recommend this series or his DMS/Joe Ledger series (those these are not YA).  I haven't read his Pine Deep Trilogy but they are on my list of books to read.  He is also in several zombie anthologies.  Even a bit of the Benny Imura story is in one which is what made me grab the first in this series.  Lastly, and I don't know you can find this until next year, he was featured in the History Channel special about zombies,  Zombies:  A Living History, which was really good and featured Max Brooks and J.L Bourne, two more excellent zombie authors.

Unfortunately it looks like it'll be a quite a few months before Jonathan's next book comes out.  Looks like March of next year when Joe Ledger returns to fight something evil in Extinction Machine.