AUGUST OF THE ZOMBIES

Zombie-plagued tween August DuPont comes into his own at last in this swampy trilogy closer.

In the wake of a hurricane that saddles the harried recluse with dozens of additional zombies risen from an old, wrecked river boat, August, even more desperate to recover the previous episode’s titular Zombie Stone in order to lay the swarming undead to rest, departs Croissant City (get it?) for spooky Lost Souls’ Swamp. In those dimly lit depths await not only misadventures aplenty, a pirate’s treasure, and a giant white alligator, but, at last, the key to August’s heritage and the reason why he is a zombie (and, oddly, butterfly) magnet. Readers expecting the usual brain-eating sort of zombies here are in for a letdown as, aside from turning rambunctious on occasion, they’re more annoying than dangerous and only back because they died with something important left undone. August’s decayed-but-doughty great-great-aunt Claudette not only proves his staunchest ally, but is invited to join the cast of a popular teen adventure TV show. In any case, by the tidy end, all (well, most) of the rotting revenants are laid to rest along with several DuPont family skeletons of the more figurative sort. In Campbell’s droll gothic illustrations, slack-jawed, drooling figures mingle with the living in racially integrated profusion, adding comical notes of general bustle and terror.

A sweet, mildly offbeat closer…with more than a few literal loose bits.