REVIEW: Cocaine Zombies

Title: Cocaine Zombies

Author: Scott A. Lerner

Genre: crime thriller

Price: $4.95 Kindle

Publisher: Camel Press

ASIN: B009W45276

Point of Sale: Amazon

Reviewed by: Chris Gerrib

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my sister said “you have got to read this book!”  I decided to give it a try, and I’m glad I did.

Scott Lerner, the author, is an attorney in Champaign, IL.  I attended the University of Illinois there, and it’s the nearest “big city” to where I grew up and where my sister lives.  Mr. Lerner, taking the advice of “write what you know,” decided to set his story there, but you don’t have to have any familiarity with Champaign to appreciate this book.

Cocaine Zombies is a twist on the tried but true old genre of hard-boiled crime fiction.  Samuel Roberts, the book’s narrator, isn’t a detective but rather a lawyer.  Sam doesn’t even own a gun.  However, he still has a one-man office in a not-very nice building, and as the story opens up his first client walks into the door.  His client is accused of selling cocaine, and is escorted and bankrolled by an exotic beauty named Chloe.  Things get interesting from there.

The book is structured as a mystery, and so I can’t explain the plot without giving things away.  But I can say that even though the book is set in modern-day Champaign, it includes zombies, Nazis, sex and drugs.  About all that’s missing is rock and roll!

Lerner’s prose is workmanlike at best, and the ending is a bit over the top, but these are minor quibbles.  This book is intended to be cotton candy for the brain, and should be read in one sitting.  Since it’s only 210 pages long, that one sitting should be fairly short and enjoyable.

Cocaine Zombies is not great literature, but it is great fun.

8/10