Jon Lymon Reviews White Flag of the Dead by Joseph Talluto

When a deadly virus sweeps across Earth, infected households are required to display white flags outside their homes. Initially the flag serves as a symbol that the humans inside have surrendered to the apocalyptic bug. But these flags soon become chilling signs that those who succumb to the infection don’t stay dead for long. They rise and begin an incessant search for sustenance in the form of human meat.

As with all apocalyptic tales, not everyone falls victim to the virus or the zombies at the same time. Dystopia needs survivors, rebels. A brave / lucky few who manage to dodge death and undeath.

In this tale, the focus of the resistance is some kind of school teaching administrator John Talon. Great name for a great guy who has expansive knowledge of all types of guns, handy in a world where you’re likely to have to shoot a neighbour or friend between the eyes at short notice.

There’s plenty of slaughtering here as readers would expect, but the twist here is that Talon has his child to worry about. And not a child who can talk and move around on his own two feet as in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Talon’s son, Jake, is a babe in arms, or more accurately, a babe in harm’s way. The wife and mother is taken out by the virus early doors, leaving father and son to fend for themselves.

The book ticks the tropes you’d expect a zombie apocalypse novel to tick as humans are forced from their homes, fear for their lives, slaughter former friends and neighbours (headshots only), try and find shelter, and attempt to build a new world, all with the ever-present threat of undeadism never far from their boarded up front door.

Talon’s certainly a brave hero who earns the respect of the humans he meets by putting his life on the line for the good of the future of the world his son will inherit. Yes, there’s some essential babysitting of Jake going on as Talon has to head out into dangerous territory that's no place for regular adults, never mind babies in carriers.

And of course, there are groups of humans who act dreadfully badly towards fellow humans – raising the question that forms the basis of many if not all dystopian novels: Who poses the biggest threat during an apocalypse – the greedy surviving humans whose actions are no longer restricted by the rule of law or the undead, whose only restrictions are their compromised abilities to see, speak and move?

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say Talon’s a true, good-guy survivor, given that the series extends to nine books. This, the first in the series, is well written and you find yourself rooting for the father and son, who one hopes grows into a hero to emulate his father.

I’m not compelled to read any more in the series, but I rarely do with so many other books to read and authors to experience. That said, I prefer my zombie books to come with a fresh (flesh?) twist on the genre, and don’t just talk the talk when I say that. I’ve walked the walk by writing my own 3-book zombie series that starts with A Big Bluff and Some Green Stuff.