Whisper House Press

Characters from each coast of the U.S.A. and a few from the middle of the country along with a gifted child in France come together in as complementary cogs in this living machine somehow churning through an undead world.

In The Devil by Name, Keith Rosson has painted a compelling picture of a post-apocalyptic United States where scavengers roam, the dead drift from habited zone to habited zone, directionless but always threatening to appear around the next corner, and where those responsible for the plague that caused the “fever” to spread in Book One might just get their comeuppance, retribution, or both.

As a person who’s got Rosson’s first book on the shelf but who hasn’t cracked the spine—and always a fan of zombie stories told well—I might have expected this book would be a challenge to capture and hold me, but the fever—so to speak—set in, and I was horrified and gladdened to rejoin the fray every evening until I’d completed this advance reader copy. There were times when the characters’ dialogue wasn’t all I had hoped for, where it didn’t reveal unique characters’ inner motivations, and where the plot felt like it was the primary thing and the characters were merely along for the ride. There were other times when I forgot I was reading a book—those, any reader knows, are the very best times we have with books. Unpredictable at every turn, truly, and leaving some loose ends (for a Fever House #3, I’d imagine) for us to wonder after, The Devil by Name is not going to make my top ten for the year, but I’m glad I spent my time with it and would recommend it to horror fans, post-apocalyptic fiction or survival-horror fans, or for those who like a good walking dead story.

Rosson has my approbation and my thanks for sharing this piece of his imagination with us. I’ll certainly be heading back to book one to find out how things got so messed up in the world he’s built.