Plague of the Undead by Joe McKinney

I finished another zombie book. It was Plague of the Undead by Joe McKinney.

In this book McKinney takes a different line about the origin of the zombie apocalypse. It's no longer Houston in the aftermath of a slew of hurricanes. This time it's a chemical food additive CDHL. It was realized too late that massive CDHL exposure causes the zombie state, and that everyone reanimates after they die.

The book is set in a town on the Mississippi river called Arbella. It's set 30 years into the ruined future. The residents of Arbella have survived and set up an agrarian pre-industrial society. The community has done well. The population has increased to 10,000 and is looking to expand beyond its walls.

An expedition team is assembled to venture out, see what's out there, and determine potential sites to expand Arbella. The book is about the expedition team and their encounters out in the wilds.

It was a good book. It felt a bit derivative of the later Walking Dead in that the zombie problem is largely under control, and a lot of the dangers are in the people they meet along the way. It's not McKinney's best zombie work. The Houston series is better, especially Apocalypse of the Dead. The book isn't really long and he ends it with a collection of zombie apocalypse short stories tacked on at the end. Some of those stories are strange, world war Z style, but a good read.

Maybe the zombie thing has run its course and I'm ready to move on. Still this was a good book. If I happen to see any more McKinney at the library I would grab it.