By GARY BRANDNER (Fawcett Crest; 1980)

A Gary Brandner novel that matches up with most other Gary Brandner novels (which inlcude THE HOWLING and CAMERON’S CLOSET), meaning WALKERS (not to be confused with the similarly titled Graham Masterton publication) is passable.  Not great, but passable.

It’s about Joana, a young LA woman who drowns at a party one night, leading to a fraught encounter with an afterlife entity.  “I do not belong here!  It is not my time!,” she proclaims, only to be warned that “We will come for you.  We will walk.  We will bring you back.”  Then she’s resurrected.

All is well but for the fact that some already-deceased people are determined to kill Joana.  In a conception utilized in many horror novels and films over the years (such as the FINAL DESTINATION franchise), it seems she wasn’t supposed to escape death’s clutches, and now zombies, or walkers, are being dispatched to make her rejoin the afterlife.  Luckily, though, only four such attempts are possible, and have to be accomplished before the Eve of St. John (June 23), meaning Joanna will be able to live out the remainder of her life unmolested if she can make it past that date.

The story has problems with motivation and plausibility (why, toward the end of the book, does the heroine, knowing full well that walkers are looking to do her in, venture out alone to meet a friend?), but calling out such things in an eighties horror novel is akin to criticizing water for being wet.  I think I’m justified, however, in complaining about the lack of action.  A mere four walkers seems a bit scant (I prefer my zombies in hordes), and too much time is spent explaining their existence; I strongly doubt too many readers will be surprised by the revelation that the dead-eyed people trying to kill the heroine are zombies, so the detailed explanations Brandner insists on providing are a bit superfluous.

A TV movie (FROM THE DEAD OF NIGHT) was made out of this novel in 1989, and WALKERS is (in keeping with the whole of Brandner’s oeuvre) very cinematic.  The descriptions are terse and the 222 page length admirably contained, while the story contains all the expected elements: gore, sex and the supernatural, with a decent third act twist.

Another thing WALKERS has is atmosphere, with a portrayal of the city of angels that rivals Robert McCammon’s THEY THIRST in LA-centric detail.  Settings include the ultra-swanky Marina Del Rey and Century City, and the less-than-swanky Boyle Heights district (which is “now decayed under the sun, populated by poor Cubans, recent immigrants from Mexico, and uncounted illegal aliens”).  Los Angeles never struck me as an ideal setting for a scare fest, but WALKERS convinced me otherwise.