Hodder & Stoughton, p/b £6.99

Reviewed by Jim McLeod

Seven mercenaries journey deep into the desert in search of Saddam’s gold. They form an unlikely crew of battle-scarred privateers, killers and thieves, veterans of a dozen war zones, each of them anxious to make one last score before their luck runs out. They soon find themselves marooned among ancient ruins, caught in a desperate battle for their lives, confronted by greed, betrayal, and an army that won’t stay dead.

This is a book that is full of surprises. From the opening of the book which riffs on the start of John Carpenters The Ghosts of Mars, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is going to yet another generic zombie novel. However once you get past this opening chapter, which to be fair is very well written, what you get is fast and furious action packed take on the zombie genre.

Full of crisp writing, snappy dialogue, and magnificently massive action set pieces, that would put most Hollywood films to shame, Juggernaut is an almost perfect blockbuster novel.

While this is a very enjoyable read, it could have benefited with some of the characters being a bit more fleshed out, rather than being mere ciphers, and at times the short and snappy paragraphs grated a little. However over all this is one of those books that once you have started it, you’ll find it really hard to put down.