Brennick is a maximum security prison holding a variety of inmates, both male and female, but all of them dangerous. When azombie plague starts to sweep across the nation, they find themselves trapped behind the walls, as the guards and the inmates slowly being to realisethe dangers that lie outside. When a scouting mission is sent out to find out the truth, they discover the local town is over run with a few survivorsaround trying to stay out of sight. Trying to balance between not getting bitten and staying alive, and the possibility of a full scale riot in thewalls, the Warden is forced to take drastic action. But with several of the guards with their own secrets, the prison turns into a powder keg, readyto blow.

Outpost is a grisly zombie story that pulls no punches when it comes to its descriptions of both zombies and life behind bars. This is a story whereno-one is a good guy, and nearly everyone has a guilty secret, murderous intent or is just a nasty piece of work. At some points you can’t help butcheer the zombies on as they munch their way through such an unlikeable class of character. Admittedly, some of the zombie killing action scenes aregreat fun as new an inventive ways are deployed. There are some gut wrenching moments, but they are few and far between.

The main problem I have is inconsistencies for the zombies and that a lot of the characters are pretty much disposable. You can easily begin to seehow will survive or not. The writing itself doesn’t help and drags in places, stalling things until it picks up for the next action scene. It’s easyto think about it as almost a script for a TV series, when such interludes would help, but within the confines of a novel, it does not have the sameeffect.

Although it does deliver on what it promises to, it’s just not quite as fun as it should be. There are two further books after this, and I will admitto being curious in how it develops, but it’s more to see when the characters will die gruesomely than any sense of wanting them to succeed, which isa shame. Zombie fans, especially those who like a high body count and associated gore will probably love this book. For the rest, it’s a bit hit andmiss.