Horrible characters ruin the book.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Better characters would have helped. The two main characters of Des Fox and Billy Trout are loathsome and weak in that order. There is nothing wrong with a flawed hero, but not when they are only flaws and have nothing to redeem them and make you care if they die. In fact a lot of readers might actually find them rooting for them to die.

Des Fox's bad traits include being borderline alcoholic, anti-social, borderline psychotic, verbally and physically abusive, sexually promiscuous and prone to outbursts of near insanity and any given moment. And yet apparently all this makes her a good cop. I can't think of anyone worse to be a cop. Why anyone in this book would follow her leadership is beyond me. After one crazy act she actually gives a lecture to people on them not doing stupid things and they agree with her. Never wanted a main character to die more than in this book.

Billy is just a weak character. He allows Des to beat on him and verbally abuse him constantly. Only she can engage in positive physical or emotional contact or Billy is likely to get hit. So I found him to weak to enjoy and found the idea of book that is effectively giving the ok to be an enabler to an abusive person a bit poor.

If you’ve listened to books by Jonathan Maberry before, how does this one compare?

Only one and I'd forgotten what I'd thought of the first one of this series. It is just the same as before.

What three words best describe William Dufris’s performance?

This narrator is a tough one. He wanders from good to bad. When he is good he is enjoyable to listen to. The problem is he has this really bad habit of delivering some of the narrative in a hyper-slow, overly dramatic manner. Maybe others won't mind it, but it really grated on me and he does it a lot. Change of pace in your voice is needed to set mood or the situation but show me one actor that would talk this slowly ever and I'll change my mind.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Yes it did have some redeeming qualities. Some of the plot was good, and I did like some of the characters. Sadly most of the ones I did like didn't make it. There were some amusing points that made me chuckle as well. So some people may enjoy this book more than I did, as it will depend on if they look for the same things I do in a book. If you want characters you care about then this won't be your cup of tea, but if not you may well like it.

Any additional comments?

If this series continues I'd wonder how he will do it, as quite frankly I wouldn't give them a snowballs chance in hell of trying to protect a large group of children without a very secure location. Think they would live longer herding them unprotected into a lion enclosure than on the road in a full scale nationwide zombie apocalypse.

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