When humans start losing their eyeballs and grinding their fingers down into stubs, a pet talking crow might be the only animal who cares enough to save them. Caught in the liminal space between bird and human, "S.T.," the talking crow who longs to be a person, would do anything to save his owner and best friend Big Jim from a technology-fueled disease turning people into murderous zombies. Accompanied by his trusty steed, a bloodhound named Dennis, S.T. searches for healthy humans while evading escaped zoo animals and rescuing pets trapped inside houses by their lack of opposable thumbs, all while cracking crude jokes and bemoaning the rude wild birds that had made fun of him for years. It’s a bizarre concept for a book, no doubt, but it's impressively pulled off by author Kira Jane Buxton, who definitely did not set out to write about sassy crows or the living dead. "If you told me four years ago I was about to write a book with zombies in it, I would have said...