Review: The Zero Dog War: Zero Dog Missions #1 by Keith Melton

Synopsis (via Goodreads):

After accidentally blowing up both a client facility and a cushy city contract in the same day, pyromancer and mercenary captain Andrea Walker is scrambling to save her Zero Dogs. A team including (but not limited to) a sexually repressed succubus, a werewolf with a thing for health food, a sarcastic tank driver/aspiring romance novelist, a three-hundred-pound calico cat, and a massive demon who really loves to blow stuff up.

With the bankruptcy vultures circling, Homeland Security throws her a high-paying, short-term contract even the Zero Dogs can’t screw up: destroy a capitalist necromancer bent on dominating the gelatin industry with an all-zombie workforce. The catch? She has to take on Special Forces Captain Jake Sanders, a man who threatens both the existence of the team and Andrea’s deliberate avoidance of romantic entanglements.

As Andrea strains to hold her dysfunctional team together long enough to derail the corporate zombie apocalypse, the prospect of getting her heart run over by a tank tread is the least of her worries. The government never does anything without an ulterior motive. Jake could be the key to success…or just another bad day at the office for the Zeroes.

Warning: Contains explicit language, intense action and violence, rampaging zombie hordes, a heroine with an attitude and flamethrower, Special Forces commandos, ninjas, apocalyptic necromancer capitalist machinations, absurd parody and mayhem, self-deluded humor, irreverence, geek humor, mutant cats, low-brow comedy, and banana-kiwi-flavored gelatin.

My Thoughts:  Oh, guys.  I wanted to open this review with a few of my favorite quotes but that I realized that I'd be quoting the whole damn book if I did that.  So I'll skip my favorite quotes and move along to the 1001 reasons why you should read this book.

Dude.  This book is fuuunnnnnny.  Like, laugh out loud funny.  Like, I was grinning like a fool in a room by myself while I was reading it funny.  This is a little known fact, but on top of rarely crying during reading (which has now been proven to be a lie since I started reading those damn Black Dagger Brotherhood books) I also rarely laugh.  Geez.  I sound like I sit here like an automaton, blankly staring at the book while I read.  And if that doesn't make me sound like the most boring person ever I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL.  So let me rephrase that.  I'm not a big laugher whilst reading.  Nope.  I'm kinda like a mime: laughing on the inside during the funny parts.  This book made me distinctly un-mime like.  Distinctly.  (as an aside, I find mimes almost as scary as clowns.  Almost.  Clowns still win, but not by much.  You know that movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space?  It scares me!  But I like the song of the same name by the Dickies.  FYI.)

On top of  being fuuunnnnnny, there are some fabulous characters in here.  A wanna-be ninja!  A repressed succubus!  A marginally inept Zombie Kingpin!  A mostly-naked werewolf whose dangly bits intrigue me!  AND THOSE ARE JUST THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS!  I just... I don't want to resort to my usual catchphrase when I go all gooey over a book but... whoa.  Just, whoa.

Okay!  I know I said I was going to go without putting in any quotes but any book that opens with this warning gets a big, old thumbs up from me!

   Warnings:
   Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery While Reading This Book.
   This Product is Not Food.
   Product Does Not Give Users Superpowers.
   This book has been clearly marked Parody and Satire.  Read at your own risk.  Humor quotient is not guaranteed.  This book is not FDA approved.
   This book does not contain sparkly vampires.

Hahahahaha!  Love it!

Urban fantasy, guys!  Urban fantasy with FIRE and ZOMBIES and BIG EXPLOSIONS!  Go!  Read!  Thank me later.

More books by Keith Melton

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