Publication Date: May 1, 2012
In Dead Rich by T.H. Rahman, Bo was a big shot in his former life. He had the money, the prestige, the chicks. When the Final War came, no one was prepared and life, as Bo knew, would change drastically. One day he’s polishing a shiny new car with a sleeve, and the next he’s scrounging for food and dodging the walking dead. Five years after the Final War, Bo’s luck runs out when he finds himself captured with three other people to be part of a reality game designed for the rich and run by the supremely evil, Mr. Tate. Can Bo, Cassius, Tony and Lynn survive or will they fall for the entertainment of the New World fatcats?
The plot line of Dead Rich was a really good idea. Mr. Tate pits ordinary people that he captures or who can’t pay the taxes he demands, and he pits them against the undead. In Rahman’s world, the undead virus is one that dogs, crocodiles and even bears can get. How do you escape a pack of dogs looking to rip you apart? The storyline brought to mind The Hunger Games but without the hope that someone will survive and live a life of luxury … or even the hope of a fight anywhere approaching fair. No one survives Mr. Tate’s game. Bo and his new friends team up and they’re good at killing zombies. Rahman writes action really well. The reader feels the intensity and the narrative moves quickly. In some cases, the violence of the storyline was almost beautiful in its flow.
That said, this novel could use a lot of polish. Rahman switches from first person (Bo) to third person omniscient frequently. We get lines of what the characters are thinking and the attitude with which they’re thinking the line. The exorbitant detail weighs the flow of the narrative. For example, Kindle location 1764:
“That drink I prepared for you,” she said snottily, the tone in her voice unpleasant.
This The line strikes me as repetitious and distracting to the reader. This line is one of many where the language could have been pared down.
The true genius of this novel is the character of Rufus. Rufus is a Gollum-like servant who speaks of himself in the third person and whose responsibility it is to procure meat for the master’s dogs. We see early on zombie dogs killing a human, and Rufus rationalizes that meat is meat. He convinces himself that this is what the master wants and no one needs to know where the meat came from. From then on we see Rufus thinking outside of himself and developing in the storyline in a way that makes for some very bold moves toward the end of the novel.
All in all, the end of the novel was bold and done well and I commend Rahman on getting his book out there. The storyline of Dead Rich kept me reading until the end and I enjoyed the twists and turns.
T.H. Rahman (a.k.a. Timothy Prive) released his second book Malice on December 3, 2012.
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