Darkly humorous, The Robusta Incident by Jennifer Fales follows a week in the downward spiral of Howard Danishefsky’s life. Fed up with the ‘short end of the stick’ that his life has become, Howard has begun to experiment with a special toxin that he expects will turn his boss and the other corporate lemmings at Robusta Coffee into zombies. With the constant companionship of his dead mother’s presence in his thoughts and the appearance of odd characters – an ancient professor, a decomposing corpse and a voodoo queen - who attempt to guide his actions, Howard drinks himself into oblivion every night and thumbs his nose at corporate rules and regulations. Howard is attempting to live up to the legacy of his father – Archibald Danishefsky – an awesome astrophysicist who may be a member of the Consortium of Evil. With his life in shambles and his mother now dead, Howard takes the opportunity to put his research to the test. Will Howard get his revenge on his hostile ex-lover and boss, Melinda, and the other corporate copycats or will this also go wrong?

Jennifer Fales easily captures the sense of futility Howard feels in The Robusta Incident as he gives in to his evil genius and carries out his plan to turn his co-workers and boss into zombies. With a tremendous amount of humor and spot-on observations about corporate conformity and the results of post-divorce life, Howard struggles with his thoughts, his mother’s voice, and his alcoholism as he follows the same routine day after day. The question is whether Howard is truly evil, chronically anti-social or simply crazy!

In The Robusta Incident by Jennifer Fales, Howard Danishefsky has been planning revenge since he was seven years old and being pounded by the bullies in the playground. Now he’s thirty-seven and nothing’s changed. He’s being bullied by his boss, the lovely ex-squeeze Melinda Carpenter, the organization he works for, and besides, he hates his co-workers who only excel at sucking up to their superiors. Howard is a genius, unappreciated of course, working for the Robusta Corporation, a company dedicated to the art of coffee. Howard would rather be working for the Consortium of Evil, the world’s oldest and largest disservice organisation. His father was the brilliant and charming astrophysicist, Archibald Danishefsky, who after wooing and wedding his young Russian ballet dancer bride, had inexplicably vanished, leaving Mimi to bring up the precocious Howard. Mimi had stuck with Howard through thick and thin, to the point where even after death she is still hanging around as a voice in his head.

Right now, Howard’s life is in tatters – he has lost his house, his child and his income in a divorce, plus it looks like he is developing a serious drinking problem, along with hallucinations, especially of goats – and his career is shaky since Melinda (aka Il Duce) keeps warning him he is not fitting in with the company’s ethos. Revenge is what he knows best, so revenge is what he plans and executes: a serum to turn his co-workers into zombies. He quietly introduces the serum into the coffee machines at work. The results are interesting, then chaotic, and finally catastrophic. Then Howard discovers there’s more to the Robusta Corporation and his father than meets the eye.

Author Jennifer Fales has a satirical style of writing that you either love or hate. To say she has a mordant wit is an understatement. The author manages to turn all established conventions of behaviour on their heads as she takes a long, hard look at people and society, and especially big corporations come under her scrutiny. She masterfully ridicules whatever comes within Howard’s scope, and particularly the bowing, scraping, and jockeying for position and favours that characterise most big businesses. Being inside Howard’s head is an intense journey for the reader as his life and his mental stability crumble, heading inexorably towards zero. I found the beginning a little slow, leading up to the actual doctoring of the coffee machines, but once zombification had taken place, the pace speeded up. Howard’s world is populated with an assortment of truly hilarious characters that added to the insight of the novel and made me laugh. In fact, if you aren’t laughing out loud at every line, at least a smile will be hovering. There are many layers to this black comedy and readers who enjoy satire, parody and dark humour will love it.

Life for Howard hasn’t always been easy. In fact, growing up as a dancer and without a father definitely made him a target. But as he grew older everything became worse. As an adult he’s stuck as a nobody, a side character in his own life story, until he creates a serum that can change the course of his entire life. Turning Robusta’s entire crew of ignorant yes-men into actually mindless, undead creatures is only the beginning of a plan intended to turn Howard from a nobody into somebody important. All it’s going to take is a little work and he’ll be part of the Consortium of Evil in no time. The Robusta Incident by Jennifer Fales is what happens when you take advantage of someone for too long.

Howard is the type of person that no one really wants to be. He’s had a rough life and he’s capped it all off by turning into no one important. But the way he rallies himself to become something better and something different is intriguing. The idea of what he’s able to accomplish and how he works towards his goal is also interesting and a great way to turn himself into the main character of his own life. I loved how he worked towards his goal and I found it interesting how he continued to change throughout the story. The Robusta Incident is a book I would recommend to anyone who enjoys fiction, and especially those who are interested in a good zombie novel.

Howard Danishefsky is the hero (and villain) of The Robusta Incident by Jennifer Fales. Howard is a down-on-his-luck chemist working at an international coffee company, who is constantly accompanied by the voice of his mother. He has only one aspiration; to join The Consortium of Evil, a nefarious organization to which his father belongs. While fiddling around on a chemistry set that was a gift for his daughter, Howard creates a serum. Not just any serum, but a zombie serum. Resentful of almost all of his coworkers, Howard starts to put the serum into the water lines of the coffee makers at work. Soon his colleagues start displaying signs of zombification. When the signs start getting severe, Howard is approached by two characters: one being a professor and the other a voodoo priestess. Soon Howard is fending for his life with zombies approaching and all hope lost. Will Howard get out of Robusta alive?

The Robusta Incident by Jennifer Fales is a very different take on the zombie genre. Most zombie stories focus on the survivors and the hope they have for getting beyond the cataclysmic event. This book gives perspective on what the creator thinks and feels, and what pushes them to the point that they feel the need to create flesh devouring creatures. Every aspect of this story feels real: the Robusta office, the coworkers (and politics associated with them), and his daily routine. This is a must-read for a horror story lover!