A Russian pilot, an above-average-housewife, and a lonely old farmer with an excellent shooting eye have only one thing in common: the zombies are here and they're not going down without a fight. Vladimir Yurish and his adopted son Ben, Angie West, and Halsey are part of a tightly knit crew who spend their days moving through the hordes of undead. Dean and Leah West, the husband and daughter, are on their own desperately trying to find a safe place. The dangers become more and more real as they travel, but the zombies aren't the only ones who present danger. Looters and killers, those who would have their own safety without concern for others, are just as thick in the air as those who should be asleep in their graves...

DRIFTERS is a new zombie novel with some excellent moments. The best segments are those with Dean and Leah West, as Leah seems to have little conception of what's going on and she provides adorable contrast to her all- too-aware father. Halsey is an entertaining character, being the older, wiser one of the group who enjoys reading and shaves on schedule even when he can't find a real reason to. I had a lot of fun reading about the characters themselves, as their insights were by far the best part of the novel.

As for the zombies, they seem typical. In an age where the zombie novel is constantly shoved at the reader, the zombies have to provide something new or the people's reaction has to be far different. DRIFTERS really has a fairly usual zombie plot, and fairly usual zombies. All the typical tropes are in place: the family man fighting for his daughter, the older misanthropic characters, the looters, shambling zombies, and all the rest of the trappings. It's not that this book is unremarkable. The prose is excellent, heartrending when it needs to be and heart-pounding at the climax.

For the zombie aficionado, DRIFTERS is another in a long list of excellent novels. For those of you not obsessed with the walking dead, I'd suggest looking for something with a bit more plot and less character introspection. I was expecting less character and more story. I enjoyed that I got a subversion of that.