by David Moody

St. Martin’s Press, $13.99, 320 pages

Carl Henshaw was driving home after a middle of the night call to repair factory equipment. Suddenly, cars were crashing around him as the drivers abruptly died. At home, he found his wife and daughter dead, apparently of the same disease that had killed the drivers he had tried to help.

Michael Collins was scheduled as a guest speaker at a school. Before he could begin his talk, students began dying. Unable to help them or find anyone else alive in the building, he wandered outside, seeing bodies everywhere, decided to go home. IIEmma Mitchell was a medical student who stayed home from class with a head cold. Unable to find anything to eat at home, she went to the corner market, where the customers and then the owner all dropped to the floor and died.

The three eventually went to the same community center with a few other survivors. When the bodies outside seemed to recover and walk around, the survivors believed themselves in danger. The three decided to flee and found a vehicle to drive into the country, where they fought to survive in an isolated farmhouse. Autumn by David Moody grabs the reader with breath-taking tension and doesn’t let go until the end.

Reviewed by Fran Byram