Charlie Higson - The Enemy

Take a dose of 28 Days Later, touches of Survivors and Escape from New York and the author’s already-proven track record in writing adult genres for a young audience with the Young Bond series, and you have an impressive first instalment in ex-Fast Show scribe Charlie Higson’s new horror series for Puffin. With a mysterious disease either killing off adults or turning them into dangerous, feral murderers (ie zombies), the children of the world have absolute freedom to do what they want, as long as they can avoid the attentions of the fearsome ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’.

Higson has fun with the concept, bringing the frank, youthful descriptiveness of Enid Blyton to a scenario which more resembles Lord of the Flies. Although a lot of the politicking is less interesting, the author’s descriptions of the city and its landmarks as one big playground, and the gruesome nature of the diseased elders, will thrill the collective imagination of his target audience.

(Puffin)