FORGOTTEN BOOK: CADAVER IN CHIEF

Cadaver in Chief:  A Special Report from the Dawn of the Zombie Apocalypse by Steve Hockensmith  (2012)

Sometimes you just need a good zombie apocalypse to make you feel better.  Especially one the begins with:  "The world was coming to an end, and Jan Woods was surrounded by people who spent their days shaving dog butts."

Jan is one of the few last reporters for The Washington Tribune, a dying newspaper.  (Actually, newspapers -- and everything else -- were dying.  It's the zombie apocalypse, after all.)  She has given her two-week notice, has just two days left on the job,  and plans to spend at the the first week of her retirement safely locked in her apartment.  In a very inglorious way to end her career, she has been assigned to cover a national dog groomers convention, at a time when most conventions -- including the Republican and Democratic conventions -- have been cancelled.  The dog roomers fiercely carried on because they felt if they had cancelled, the zombies would have won.  Now, with the dog groomers behind her (as well as the dogs' behinds), Jan has been assigned to check out a rumor from a very unreliable podcaster that the President of the United States is dead...and has been for some time.  According to the rumor, the Party is covering up the president's death by bringing out a double until after the upcoming election.  The president is leading both in the pools and in PAC funding by a wide margin, and the Party does not dare replace him with the vice president because of the VP's recent Vestigial Vaginagate scandal (don't ask).

The White House is denying the president is dead.  The podcaster won't reveal his sources (if he ever had any in the first place) and his evidence is flimsy.  But a story is a story and Jan tries to report it in a fair and balanced way.

Meanwhile, the Democratic challenger announced his running mate -- a neophyte politician with six weeks' experience on the Evansville (IN) City Council (and who has managed to miss every meeting), and "a differently-abled Midwestern Catholic of Chinese-Mexican descent who's married to an African-American Jew with whom she's raising a brood of Filipino foster children."

And the unreliable podcaster got a hold of the president's death certificate and released it; unfortunately the official signature on the certificate was a made-up name that is usually reserved for junior high school jokesters.

Amazingly though, Jan seemed to be getting closer to the truth.  Someone had just sent her a large package containing a very hungry, very dead, yet extremely active, purple dwarf with an exploding head.

Political shenanigans increase, as does the political divide.  The President remains dead, or undead, or living dead, or whatever.  And the country continues to go to hell in a handbasket.  But the military has a plan, and it's not a good one.

The apocalypse has never been more fun.  It may actually be more fun than the current political climate.

Recommended.

I should mention that the book has a distinct anti-MAGA bent, although it was published some four years before MAGA was a gleam in its daddy's eyes.

Steve Hockensmiith is the bestselling author of the Holmes on the Range mystery series, the Hired Gun western series, the Tarot mystery series, the Nick and Tesla children's adventure series, and two Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novels, among other works.  His books are inventive, funny, and worth checking out.