Tangled Web UK Review June 2009
Handling the Undead by
John Ajvide Lindqvist
pbk out March 09
(Quercus)
at £12.99
This an extraordinary, horrible and weird book, far removed from a crime novel and lying in the ‘Horror’ category alongside Stephen King.
Ably translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg, it starts on a night in Stockholm when strange things happen to the electricity supply - appliances switch themselves on spontaneously and refuse to be turned off. Then the corpses in the city mortuary all decide to get up and try to go home, even if they have already have had an autopsy or are incomplete from mutilating accidents.
As the days go on, it transpires that all those who died less than two months previously have become ‘undead’ and a massive army operation is required to dig up all the recent burials in the cemeteries to release them, even when decomposed.
The story is told through the (mis)fortunes of three families and how this bizarre event affects them - and how the city of Stockholm tries to cope with such a catastrophe.
The reason for this impossible situation is never hazarded and the ending is indeterminate - how anyone could write such a book is beyond me, but the author’s previous story was a best seller.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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