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Isle of the Dead

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Isle of the Dead

By: Jody Neil Ruth
Narrated by: Richard Ready
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About this listen

Lord of the Flies meets Dawn of the Dead. This debut novel from one of the Isle of Wight's most infamous residents will blow you away!

Sergeant John Warrington has policed his home town for years, but has never encountered anything like the grisly events that sunny morning at the Purton Mill.The dead are rising and overrunning the island, and Warrington and his companions must find an escape before the dead claim them....

If you enjoy your horror realistic and powerfully written, you'll enjoy this breakout novel from Jody Neil Ruth.

©2018 Jody Neil Ruth (P)2020 Jody Neil Ruth Horror Scary
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This is a great book, I can recommend it to anyone who likes good Zombie stories. I would describe it as a mix between 28 Days Later and Shaun of The Dead. The story follows several people on the Isle of Wight and I was using Google Maps to follow along to the story to see where the different groups were. The story never lost momentum and it ends with a twist I didn’t expect. I can’t wait to listen to the next book.

Highly recommended

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Listener received this title free

Isle of the Dead is Jody Neil Ruth's first published novel and it's as solid a debut as they come. The story is set on the Isle of Wight and follows three protagonists; a police officer and a young couple who are separated during the crisis that befalls the island.

The characters are believable, have depth and you feel a sense of attachment to each protagonist in their own way.

I listened to the audio book which is read by BBC's Richard Ready (aka 'Spanners' of the popular F1 podcast Missed Apex). Ready really helps with the immersion of the story, adding accents and tones that convey the different characters and making it easier to follow which characters are speaking to who (often something that can be a challenge when reading a physical/e-book where there's significant dialogue between several characters). He also added touches of humour with the way certain characters behave or react to given situations.

My one gripe was how one character (Williams) was difficult to reconcile given his profession prior to the crisis. Without giving any spoilers away, his actions and moral compass do not align with someone in his line of work. Perhaps Ruth was attempting to demonstrate how a crisis can change a person, however if this was the case, I feel it required more development.

One aspect I'd like to call out for particular praise was the ending twist that I hadn't been expecting - I haven't been floored by such an unexpected turn for quite some time. All in all, a really strong debut novel that sets the scene for the sequel that I'll be keeping an eye out for - Land of the Dead.

Solid Debut Novel

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