Carey, better known to many as Mike Carey, is the author of three books, several comics, movies, and a radio script. He writes post-apocalyptic stories that are more human than most authors can deliver.

Melanie is a second generation hungry. Hungries are humans infected with a fungus that destroys the brain, except that children born to the infected have some immunity, so can live long lives with fully functioning brains.

Either way, hungries eat only meat, and, as you might recall, humans are loaded with meat. With most of the world overtaken by zombie-like, flesh-eating humans, a small research station is created in England to study the kids and find out why they are able to function so well, hoping that will lead to a cure.

Because the kids eat people (only the uninfected) they have to be locked up even as they are studied.

I am not a big fan of the genre, but I do like a tense, fast-paced story. This is it.

Carey wrote a last chapter which was cut from the book. If you want to read it after you finish the book, you will find it here.

Mike Lawrence