Aconyte Books’ range of novels based on the board game Zombicide begins with Josh Reynolds’ Last Resort, an entertaining and action-packed tale of survival against the odds after a zombie apocalypse. Westlake is a career thief, determined to brave the dangers of the zombie-infested Adirondack Mountains in search of ‘the Villa’, a semi-mythical sanctuary controlled by a vicious mafia kingpin. When he’s saved from serious trouble by a ragtag group of survivors led by an ex-FBI agent of his acquaintance, he sees the opportunity to find a crew of sorts to help him reach and access the Villa, if only he can persuade them to help. Luckily for Westlake, the survivors are growing increasingly desperate, and are willing to risk much for the chance to find a safe haven from the zombies.
So it is that Westlake, ex-Agent Ramirez and a disparate crew – including a zombie-studying college student (and her dog), a conspiracy theorist, a cowboy, a biker and (of all things) a luchador – find themselves hiking through the mountains and fending off zombies from all quarters. It’s a fun, compelling setup and in typical fashion Reynolds does a great job of throwing together this unexpected mix of characters, slowly revealing their histories and secrets, and seeing whether they’re able to work together, set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse that’s slowly wearing everyone down. Supplies are running low, zombies are everywhere, and there’s an underlying sense of both desperation and exhausted acceptance, with the tantalising prospect of the Villa – if it really exists; if it’s as much of a sanctuary as Westlake says; if they can find it and find a way inside – offering a powerful stimulus.
Westlake and Ramirez provide the driving force of the story, their uncomfortable relationship and very different motivations providing an instant air of tension on top of the ever-present threat of death-by-zombie. The uneasy understanding they forge between them gradually – and interestingly – evolves over the course of the book, even if there maybe isn’t room for them to develop much as individual characters, but zombologist Kahwihta (along with Attila, her dog) steals the show with her constant fascination with studying zombie behaviour. She adds a younger, less worldly perspective to events, and her observations of the zombies help to elevate the walking dead to something much more dangerous than simply an endless horde of identically shambling horrors. The zombies aren’t the only danger facing the characters (a few human adversaries provide welcome additional challenges) but in their behavioural and physical varieties – from speedy runners to terrifying brutes, and more – they prove genuinely threatening, as Reynolds ably demonstrates across a series of inventive set pieces.
Zombies aside, there’s an engaging, albeit bleak, sense of despair running throughout the story, as the surviving humans increasingly worry about how long they’re going to be able to last – with supplies running low and little hope of rebuilding any sort of infrastructure in the face of apparently inexhaustible numbers of the undead. Any victory risks feeling pyrrhic, and the way Reynolds balances the competing demands of hope and despair is a big part of the book’s success. All told this leans heavily towards the action end of the horror spectrum, as a fast-paced adventure packed with excitement and danger that delivers lashings of undead gore without ever getting too gruesome. That might not suit hardcore zombie fans looking for a graphic gore-fest, but should provide a broader appeal – irrespective of readers’ familiarity with Zombicide as a setting – for casual fans of zombie stories and Reynolds’ always-entertaining writing alike.
Many thanks to Aconyte Books and Josh Reynolds for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review – Last Resort is due out as a global ebook and US paperback in October, with the UK paperback following in November.
See also: the overall Aconyte Books page on Track of Words for loads more reviews and interviews.
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Naming a career thief Westlake is almost undoubtedly a reference to Donald E. Westlake, author of the “Parker” series of novels about a career thief (under the pseudonym Richard Stark.)