| Summary |
This is a 'mosaic novel' set in the near-future, when a desperate and ever-more controlling UK government decides to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. However, controversial plans to build on the site of an old church in South London releases a centuries-old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion on to others. Even worse, the virus may also have a supernatural origin with the power to revive the dead. Despite the attempts of the police, the military and those in power to understand and contain the infection commonly referred to as 'The Death', it soon sweeps across London, transforming everyone who comes into contact with it. With the city - and the country - falling into chaos, even a drastic attempt at a 'Final Solution' to eradicate the outbreak at its source fails to prevent it from spreading to Europe and then quickly throughout the rest of the world. Soon there is no more news coming out of Britain ...and it is up to those survivors in other countries to confront the flesh-eating invaders within their midst. Will humanity triumph over a world-wide zombie plague, or will the walking dead ultimately inherit the Earth? Told through various disparate and overlapping eye-witness accounts, through texts, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries, transcripts, official reports and other forms of communication, a picture builds up of a world plunged into chaos - where the dead attack the living, and only one of them can be the ultimate victor. |
