Dead People’s Town-Siddharth Nirwan

Book: Dead People’s Town

Author: Siddharth Nirwan
Publisher: Locksley Hall

Have you read a zombie horror story?

Dead People’s Town by Siddharth Nirwan takes place in Raisingh Garh, at the Lord Erwin Memorial Hospital when an unauthorized drug trial on terminally cancer patients goes horribly wrong. The patients turn into ferocious breed of predators, hungry for blood and gore. No restricted to just patients, it spreads like fire and everyone is falling prey to it. The hospital goes under a digital lockdown, the survivors inside it are facing their worst nightmare. The question is, would there be any survivors, or would this turn into a dead people’s town?

The plot of the book is quite unique with a zombie horror set in India. The details are gory and Siddharth has used his medical training to explicitly focus on the injuries and the biting. Another thing that the book is specific about are the medical terms and Siddharth’s medical training jumps out from it. This add a wonderful layer of authenticity to the entire plot. The storytelling is excellent and the book is quite fast paced with each page making the reader turn to the next. While the overall impression of the book is decent, there are things that could have been improved. The first point that didn’t work for me was the quite a number of loose ends that the plot has. Second thing that I had an issue with was the lack of the tension in the plot that should have had. The climax was interesting, but it makes sense only if it has a sequel lined up. Otherwise, the plot still hangs in the lurch.

Coming to the characters, Siddharth takes his time and each of the major characters get a proper time to establish themselves. I loved the character of Dr. Hari and his motivations to do what he did. Anjali’s character was someone thought would go in a different arc. The character of Rosie was interesting, but I felt she was underutilized and could have had another way that it developed. The arc of a lot of the characters was left hanging and I would have loved to see more of them being used in the plot.

Overall a good book that scores a 3.94/5 for me.

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