One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford

A scientist desperately searches for a cure to a zombie virus while also hiding a monumental secret – her undead husband. This Leigh Radford debut is full of heartbreak, revulsion and black humour.

Kesta’s husband Tim was the last person to be bitten in a zombie pandemic. The country is now in a period of respite, the government seemingly having rounded up and disposed of all the infected.

But Kesta has a secret…

Tim may have been bitten, but he’s not quite dead yet. In fact, he’s tied to a bed in her spare room. And she’s made him a promise: find a cure, bring him back.

A scientist by day, Kesta juggles intensive work under the microscope alongside Tim’s care, slipping him stolen drugs to keep him docile, knowing she is hiding the only zombie left. But Kesta is running out of drugs – and time. Can she save her husband before he is discovered? Or worse… will they trigger another outbreak?

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I love post-apocalyptic fiction and so it was a foregone conclusion that I’d read One Yellow Eye when I came across it.  One aspect to the novel that immediately grabbed me was that it’s not your typical zombie novel.  Instead of zombies rampaging through the streets while a small but intrepid group fight for their lives, this novel presents us with the aftermath of an almost apocalyptic event.  From patient zero, the infection spread rapidly but was contained within London, and the government has since rounded up and killed all of those infected.  Now, London is starting to open up again as the strict quarantine and lockdown measures are relaxed.  It’s a different take, and one that I found both intriguing and refreshing.

Our main protagonist is Dr Kesta Shelley.  An oncology doctor, she is desperate to work on Project Dawn which will study the infection and try to devise a cure to prevent future outbreaks.  This sounds very noble, but her motivation is not as selfless as it appears.  It’s revealed very early on that Kesta’s husband, Tim, was infected right at the end of the outbreak.  Rather than turning him into the authorities or, more drastically, killing him herself as we discover that others have done to their own loved ones to prevent becoming infected themselves, she has kept him alive and sedated in their spare bedroom.  This is also quite an unusual element to the novel.

Kesta is a great character.  She is clearly very devoted to Tim and it’s easy to understand her reluctance to let the love of her life go, despite the difficulties in she has in hiding him.  And unlike the majority of us, she’s ideally placed to keep him alive as a cure is sought through her medical training and her opportunity to filch whatever supplies she needs to keep him sedated.  It’s a huge burden though.  It’s a crime that could see her imprisoned if Tim were discovered, and she’s constantly worried that she’ll return home one day to find that he has died or escaped.  This pressure, along with the repeated thefts from work and the necessity of pushing away those who believe she’s grieving for her deceased husband takes its toll.  That she becomes a little unhinged as the novel progresses is no surprise at all and if she makes some poor choices, it’s with positive intentions. 

One Yellow Eye is a little more science heavy than some novels as we witness the work at Project Dawn and the attempt to develop a cure.  For me, the science makes the team’s work feel authentic, as does the bureaucracy and red tape that they’re inevitably faced with.  I found these parts of the novel absolutely fascinating, particularly as Kesta and the small team she’s a part of do identify the source of the infection, which is only the first part of the problem.  The source of the zombie outbreak is highly original and that’s it’s based upon a real thing (I had to look it up on the tinterweb but it is a real thing) is mildly terrifying, although it’s thankfully not something that affects humans in reality.  Not yet, at least.    

One Yellow Eye is a novel that’s a whole lot of fun, albeit with some bleaker moments as Kesta struggles with the pressure of keeping her husband alive and secret.  While it’s not based upon COVID, there are some obvious parallels, and it’s hard not to make some comparisons to what’s going on in Kesta’s London to that period when we emerged from our own lockdowns and began to interact with each other again.  It’s a novel that I highly recommend for its originality, its dark humour, and the insight into what goes on behind closed laboratory doors.