The Panama Laugh [Paperback]

Thomas S. Roche (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2011

Ex-mercenary, pirate, and gun-runner Dante Bogart knows he''s screwed the pooch after he hands one of his shady employers a biological weapon that made the dead rise from their graves, laugh like hyenas, and feast upon the living. Dante tried to blow the whistle via a tell-all video that went viral - but that was before the black ops boys deep-sixed him at a secret interrogation site on the Panama-Colombia border. When Dante wakes up in the jungle with the five intervening years missing from his memory, he knows he''s got to do something about the laughing sickness that has caused a world-wide slaughter. The resulting journey leads him across the nightmare that was the Panama Canal, around Cape Horn in a hijacked nuclear warship, to San Francisco''s mission district, where a crew of survivalist hackers have holed up in the pseudo-Moorish-castle turned porn-studio known as The Armory. This mixed band of anti-social rejects has taken Dante''s whistle blowing video as an underground gospel, leading the fight against the laughing corpses and the corporate stooges who''ve tried to profit from the slaughter. Can Dante find redemption and save civilization?

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books (August 30, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597802905
• ISBN-13: 978-1597802901
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #930,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Zombies + weapons + San Francisco...and one tiger! September 2, 2011

By Me and My Kindle

Format:Paperback

It's exciting from the first page - even before things get *really* complicated. (My girlfriend and I both read this book, and she described the action as "relentless".) It's like a Quentin Tarantino movie, where a fight suddenly gets even more difficult - and then something else entirely new happens. But it's all very carefully written, which actually makes the whole wild story believable!

It's not just that there's zombies. There's also a family of crimelords, some independent soldiers of fortune, and a radical fringe group who falls under suspicion (which includes exactly one crazy dotcom millionaire). I liked all the author's "local" references to San Francisco and Oakland, and he also seems to know a lot about Panama. (And weapons. LOTS of weapons.) The story moves fast, but it also covers a lot of ground, like a good zombie apocalypse story should. After all, we're talking about a global apocalypse...

Everyone knows the basics of zombie lore, but this book adds a few original twists - both biological and situational. I'd say that it's definitely creepier than your typical zombie story - which makes it that much more rewarding when it's time for the inevitable zombie-fighting. But with all of that, the main character actually develops by the end of the book. I actually found that to be very satisfying - that there was a "novel"-sized moment within a larger action/horror story.

Caution: zombie brains will be splattered. It's an intense book, and your grandma probably won't like it. (Unless she's into zombie apocalypse fiction.) But then again, would you really want to read a zombie apocalypse story that was safe for your grandma?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So a recent laughing jag made me nervous... March 1, 2012

By Sommer Marsden

Format:Kindle Edition

4.5 stars

Any book that makes you nervous when you have a laughing jag...that's a book to read.

A whole new take on zombies. As thrilling as it is terrifying. Roche's noir voice shines through. Highly recommended if you like rapid-fire witty dialogue and ya know...monsters. The writing is superb, the plot if flawless, the characters are brilliant. What's not to like?

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go! September 18, 2011

By Kelly Swails

Format:Paperback

The Panama Laugh grabs you by the throat and punches you in the face from beginning to end, and I mean that in a good way. The story begins around six weeks after a world-wide zombie apocolypse had occured. Our hero, a contractor/mercenary named Dante "Frosty" Bogart, finds himself completely naked in the middle of the jungle with no recollection of the past five years. Frosty--but don't call him that--must find his friends and a place to survive while piecing together his past. Oh, and if he could figure out what part he played in the collapse of society, that would be great. And if he could do all that while avoid bites from laughers--Roche's zombies can't stop laughing--that would be the icing on the end-of-the-world cake.

There is a lot to like here. The voice is perfect, as are the characters. The pacing doesn't give you much breathing room, which I liked. The structure of the narrative is confusing at times--it shifts between flashbacks and the here-and-now with rapidity--and so the lack of chapter breaks adds a kink into the otherwise bad-ass armor. Roche doesn't hold back on the gore level, which I appreciated, but at the same time I didn't feel it was ever gratuitous. If anything, I would have liked for the author to go deeper into the devestation. Dante isn't an emotional guy--hence the nickname--and so the lack of emotional connection to the loss of humanity made sense. I would have liked to have seen some sort of recognition of this on Dante's part--that this cold-hearted killer found his own humanity just as most everyone else in the world lost theirs.

But that's a minor quibble. The Panama Laugh is an enjoyable roller-coaster ride that will leave you satisfied--if a bit shaky--when you're done.