A fun read but could've been better.

If you want blood, gore, car chases and near-misses there's plenty. But character development was not good for me. A lot of potentially great characters were not fleshed out enough and some who did develop throughout the trilogy were kind of , well, meh. Like the battered-housewife-coming-into-her-own could have been a great character but to have Jenni almost instantly morph from helpless-shellshocked-needy to a horny, wisecracking GI Jane and eventually Savior Of The World lacked a lot of "middle story" for me. And Katie deteriorating from a nice strong multi-faceted character in the beginning to weepy, clingy arm decoration for her husband by the third book was equally meh. Even her verbal "confrontation" with the cartoonish villainess of this third installment had none of the promised fireworks and added nothing to the story.
And although I certainly do not read zombie books for plausibility the introduction of the supernatural ghosty aspect in this third book was weird. I love ghosts and all ghosty possibilities but to have them become corporeal was a bit much and introduced a very deep supernatural aspect that the first two books did not have. The author never previously referred to anything supernatural regarding the way the the zombies came about --- there was constant mention of residual "brain activity" and "reptilian instinct" and hinting towards some pseudo-scientific explanation for the zombocalypse. So the lack of introduction and buildup of the ghost aspect made it confusing. In this sense the character of the medium (Rune) could have been used really well --- he was one potentially superinteresting character who never got going. In the end he was just a guy who saw ghosts ???!!?? and threw a couple of grenades --- again, a character who ended up meh where he could've been wow. Just like the final battle which ended with a fizzle instead of a bang. I sigh at the potential knockdown drag-out fight with the military that was hinted at but never happened.
Still I was entertained although I felt this book (and the rest of the trilogy) had real potential to be much better. Best of luck to the author for her next books, I hope she continues to grow in her craft.