Book review
Written by Wayne Simmons
Snowbooks paperback
Release date Out now

The majority of the population drop dead – and for the few survivors, life goes from bad to worse…

Yes, unfortunately Wayne Simmons’s debut novel is as clichéd as the above description makes it sound. Flu seemed like a welcome return for well-written pulp, with an unusual choice of location (Belfast), and a cast of mismatched characters from that part of the world thrown together to sink or swim after a devastating outbreak of… something. But it’s clear now that Simmons was simply reworking his earlier idea, since Drop Dead Gorgeous, here presented in a revised edition, treads much of the same ground. We’ve even got another British Army/IRA member pairing that surprise, surprise, doesn’t work out.

The title, and the book’s promotion, are misleading, since the dead don’t come back to life until very late in the book, at which point it becomes a gory bloodbath. Up to then we get another set of post-apocalypse characters, none of whom is particularly sympathetic, getting together, fighting, making and breaking alliances and generally revealing Simmons’s view of humanity to be overtly pessimistic. Paul Simpson

VERDICT: 5/10
If you’ve not read Flu, then you’ll find this a decent piece of pulp. But if you have read the earlier-published novel, there’s nothing new here.