Dead Man's Drive

Dead Man's Drive by Michael Panush
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Zombies, demons, and a new crime boss named Roy Roach threaten the sleepy 1950s town of La Cruz, California, and the only ones that can save them are the supernatural hot rodders at Donovan Motors. Will Roscoe the hot rodding zombie discover his old memories before his friends are killed? What's Wooster's secret? And what are the bad guys really after?

I got this from Netgalley.

It's hard to resist a book about supernatural creatures driving around in hot rods. The Donovan Motors crew acts as troubleshooters for the town of La Cruz, named for an unholy relic hidden in the nearby mountains. Roscoe, their newest recruit, is an amnesiac zombie. Other members of the crew include a bankrobber named Wooster, a Mexican named Angel, a college student named Bettie who is also a witch, and young Jewish teen Felix who is also a wizard. Oh, and Felix's pet Yeti cub, Snowball.

Sound good so far? How about leftover Nazi Reed Strickland, who wants to run the crew out of town so he can take over? Or Mr. Roach, the cannibal with a centipede for a tongue?

Dead Man's Drive is like a 1950s hot rod movie, only with lots of supernatural creatures and laughs. There's also a fair amount of gore but most if it is perpetrated against zombies. It's a really fun little book and didn't overstay its welcome like a lot of books of the same type.

The book didn't really have many slow parts. The book may as well have been written according to Lester Dent's formula. The heroes were introduced and the shit kept piling up, like an overflowing toilet in a lackluster Mexican restaurant. Even though it's the first book in the series, I wasn't sure who was going to survive.

Befor I wrap this up, here are potential blurbs I came up with while reading:
- Zombies, flying skeletal birds, yeti cubs, quaint 1950's style racism, this book has everything!
- Dead Man's Drive is head and shoulders above all the other books about zombies driving hot rods while defending a small California town from supernatural threats in the 1950s out there.
- It's like The Fast & The Furious meets The Munsters, only it doesn't suck!

3.5 out of 5 stars. I'll be returning for the next Rot Rods adventure, Detour to the Apocalypse.

View all my reviews