Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski

October 05, 2016

Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski, Zombie Noir

Braineater Jones wakes up face down in a swimming pool with no memory of his former life, how he died, or why he’s now a zombie. With a smart-aleck severed head as a partner, Jones descends into the undead ghetto to solve his own murder.

But Jones’s investigation is complicated by his crippling addiction to human flesh. Like all walking corpses, he discovers that only a stiff drink can soothe his cravings. Unfortunately, finding liquor during Prohibition is costly and dangerous. From his Mason jar, the cantankerous Old Man rules the only speakeasy in the city that caters to the postmortem crowd.

As the booze, blood, and clues coagulate, Jones gets closer to discovering the identity of his killer and the secrets behind the city’s stranglehold on liquid spirits. Death couldn’t stop him, but if the liquor dries up, the entire city will be plunged into an orgy of cannibalism.

Cracking this case is a tall order. Braineater Jones won’t get out alive, but if he plays his cards right, he might manage to salvage the last scraps of his humanity.

4 out of 5, here's why:

I listened to a copy of the audiobook provided by the author for the Horror Aficionados Sponsored Group Listen. It's going on all month, please feel free to join us!

It’s the 1930’s and a man wakes up in a pool with a big hole in his chest and no memory of what transpired the night before. But he’s not exactly a man anymore . . .

He manages to track down more of his “kind” and learns that he needs booze to keep his brain from turning to complete mush. But booze costs money and his money is dwindling fast. He becomes known as “Braineater Jones”, PI for the dead who are still walking around. Surprisingly enough, he finds tons of work and has little time left to crack his own case. Who plugged him and why? He seems like a nice enough guy, he thinks, but he doesn’t really remember.

This book is a mashup of a noir, hard-boiled detective type of story set in a world where the dead don’t die. I’ll be honest and tell you I’m not a big fan of the noir but this story is a riot and would make a fun movie that I’d pay to watch. It is seriously funny and has some kooky ideas about body parts that actually made me laugh. I never do that. The narrator reads the story with such joy and enthusiasm that it’s infectious and his voices are hilarious.

It’s sometimes gross but a zany kind of gross. “He made a noise like a big wad of oatmeal getting sucked up a puckered anus.” If you need a laugh and like something just a little off kilter, I’m pretty certain this one will do the trick.

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