by Terrance Mc Arthur

Details at the end of this post on how to win an ebook copy of Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter and a link to purchase it.

Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

What if Lizzie did kill her father and stepmother…but it was self-defense…because they attacked her…because they were ZOMBIES? That is the story behind C. A. Verstraete’s Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter. In the tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, Verstraete wraps a horror story around the historical facts of a grisly double-murder case from 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts.

When Lizzie and her sister Emma axed her father and his wife, they launched themselves into a mad, mad world of violent attacks, scandalous trials, and cover-ups that hid the danger in the town. Secret societies, conspiracies, betrayals, family secrets, and more zombies are discovered by the women and their partners in zapping those zombies.

Small passages at the head of chapters are quotes from the trial transcripts and articles, giving a glimpse into the facts of a fanciful story. It adds a layer of the surrealism of Lizzie’s interrogation in the courtroom. Naturally, some of the attitudes and ideas are more modern than the period, but…face it, zombies roaming the streets of the Bay State, and you’re worried about historically accurate dialogue? Really!

Verstraete wrote Girl Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie, and her zombie outlook has since widened from the half-z’s and teenage angst of that book. This sounds strange, but I admire her detailed descriptions of the nauseating stench and the decaying petrification of the sort-of-dead. You can mentally hear the moans and breaking bones, see the rotting body parts, and—BOY—can you smell it!

There’s a decent mystery attached to the story, as Lizzie and her proto-Scooby-Gang try to discover where the zombies are coming from, who is behind it, and why the zombies are here. There are some nice twists ( Lizzie has a time when she would qualify for an “Axe-Wielders Gone Wild” video) and a touch of the bittersweet to go with the gore (and more gore). If you liked Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, or if unsolved murders make you want to imagine a solution, Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter is a cut above the others.

To enter to win an ebook copy of Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “zombie hunter,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 22, 2016. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address.

Check out more fantasy book reviews in our fantasy and fangs section.

You can use this link to purchase the book from Amazon. If you have ad blocker on you may not see the link:

Terrance V. Mc Arthur is a Community Librarian for the WoW! (WithOut Walls) Division of the Fresno County Public Library, roaming the Valley to meet the public’s information needs.