A man wakes up, face down in the pool with a bullet wound in his chest. He doesn’t remember his name, his life or how he got there – or how he died. Or how he’s still walking around.

 

He is a zombie and he has so much to learn about that – a full list of questions in fact. As he learns how to survive as an alcohol soaked member of the undead he finds his habit of asking questions sets him up to solve many other cases.

Braineater Jones, zombie PI, with many questions, few answers and a whole whacky noir world to navigate.

 

 

 

This book gets definite points for originality. Sentient zombies – but sentient rotting zombies, sentient rotting zombies with a shelf-life, memory issues and a society which semi-acknowledges them but only to put them on the very bottom of the social ladder. It’s definitely an interesting concept

 

That setting is the late 1920s/early 1930s and has a very film noir setting with shades of Prohibition (prohibition is over but the town is still dry) which is especially difficult for the zombies who need alcohol to keep their mental facilities. Without which they degrade quickly and become braineaters, marauding monsters of movie legend. Which is a fate that awaits them eventually anyway as their bodies and minds rot

 

This makes Braineater a slur among their community and more than one vampire is outraged by Jones, who doesn’t remember much or anything of his human life, chooses to use it as a name.

 

The story itself is very very twisty in classic Noir style. We have shocks and surprises. We have twists and turns. There’s lots of double crossing and lots of misdirection and lots of people being the complete opposite of what you expect them to be. The whole idea of what’s being explored and examined changes from chapter to chapter with Jones both desperately trying to drag up some memories of his past life, some indication of who he was and why he died – or who killed him since he has a big bullet hole. Throwing in just learning what it means to be a zombie on tip of that – there’s a lot to get through.

 

And that’s something of the problem. There’s a lot to get through and the book isn’t that long and we just sprint through it all. Along the way we kind of lose things like motivation, development or exploration. I don’t know why Jones has decided to become a detective. He doesn’t exactly do a lot of work to figure out who he was nor to really try and regain his memories. He becomes super suspicious about people and I’m not quite sure where the suspicion comes from. He develops friendships and positions where I’m not sure where they’ve come from and many of them apparently become passionate and deep very quickly.

 

It feels like we have an excellent book, or even an excellent series of books, with complete interesting world building and a really twisty complex storyline. But then it felt like an over-eager editor decided to cut huge chunks of development and exploration from the book leaving it all a bit too fast and just a bit hollow and unsupported in places.

 

 

Interestingly this book has a preamble from the author in which they are conscious that this story is written at a time where prejudices were overt and common and that the voices of the characters reflect that. Basically it has a foreward warning that recognises and cautions that overt sexism, homophobia and racism will be present in this book to reflect the time. It’s interesting and positive to have this kind of warning at the front of the book and an overt acknowledgement that this language is harmful to people.

 

At the same time it’s almost surprising because I have read waaay worse without the “excuse” of a historical context – it’s almost like the warning should be in another book. Sure the language is far from appropriate but largely not gratuitous in its references. I appreciate the warning but have to say the book itself, which contains POC and bisexual people and women, doesn’t apply anachronistic acceptance but nor does it really revel in the bigotry it could. There are Black characters, a fairly major Latino character, a bisexual protagonist and some powerful women.

 

 

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This is one of the first audio books I have listened to where the narrator went utterly cheesy with the voices . It could have failed horribly but it was actually the perfect choice. Steve Rimpici had me cracking up, and yet somehow managed to still get me invested in the story.

Braineater Jones was an entertaining listen both for the story and the narration. While the basic idea of a dead guy walking and investigating what happened to him has been done before (Down Solo), the twists that the author put on it were refreshingly unique. I enjoyed seeing how things were going to play out and found myself constantly surprised. There was a section at the end that I re-wound and listened to like three times just to make sure I was perfectly clear on what had happened. A hazard of driving and listening, I guess.

This is not a book to listen to if you are easily offended. There are multiple elements that could offend. If you are sensitive to abortions/miscarriages/thoughts of dead babies, you may want to give this a pass. However, I've lost a child, and I had no problem with it. The way it was used was disturbing and weird enough that it never really 'clicked' as a problem for me.

I think this was a great job overall .

I received a copy of this book for a group listen in Goodreads.

I listened to a copy of the audiobook provided by the author for the Horror Aficionados Sponsored Group Listen. Please feel free to join us! I'm also going to use this book for my "mystery" square because this book is full of them!

 

 

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 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.

 

 

I received this book to give an honest review.

 

I honestly had no clue where this book was going to take me but I can say it was a humorous read. Jones is a dead man but has no memory of what happened to him. As the days progress and he ends up becoming somewhat of a P.I. better known as Braineater Jones P.I.  he wants to solve not only his murder but why is not able to remember anything about who he once was. As Jones starts uncovering things his life might be in danger even more since there is only one way to kill a zombie and he needs to make sure that doesn't happen to him.

The weird thing about this book is that zombies and humans live among each other. They have their own area to where they should stay at and of course cops don't come and get into zombie business. But it is like they can co-exist without too much of a worry minus the smell and the dead look. 

I have to say the way this author came about with this story it wasn't gruesome at all to me it was far from it. Yes there is a bit of skin flaking off or maggots in a wound but other than that nothing gory which for me was okay in a book like this. We learn why the zombies or deadman keep up their normal activities such as walking, talking and not eating brains. It all has to do with the liquor.  

I thought Jones was a well developed character I really loved how he didn't give up on asking questions and finding out answers no matter the outcome. I also thought him having a head as a partner really put the icing on the cake in this zombie story, I kept imagining how he taped the head on his shoulder and was wondering how in the heck did it truly stay on.

Waking up in a swimming pool tainted with blood, a hole shot through his chest, he should be dead, and he is.  Deemed himself Braineater Jones, he tries to navigate his new undead life.  With no memory and few clues, Jones finds himself in a bar with others of his kind.  Needing alcohol to keep himself from caving to his cravings, Jones also needs money.  Braineater Jones becomes an undead Private Investigator for his own kind. Along with his sidekick, who happens to be a severed head, Jones solves the strange problems of his undead counterparts.  However, the one mystery Jones forgets to solve is his own.

 

Funny and unexpected, Braineater Jones was a wonderful compilation of genres.  Set in the 1930’s near prohibition and written in the pulp fiction style, there is a good mix of historical fiction, mystery, zombies and plenty of humor.  Through the eyes of Jones, the reader only knows what he does, which isn’t much.  This made for a very fast-paced read and kept me wondering what could possibly happen next along with Jones.  I loved the incorporation of history at the time and the incorporation of history at the time and the Nazi/zombie connection.  There was a great sense of place and time period, even with the inclusion of zombies, the language, atmosphere and people all fit perfectly into this world.  The mysteries that Jones solves brought me deeper into his world and contained just the right amount of humor.  Braineater Jones is a great pick for anyone looking for a different kind of zombie read.

 

This book was provided for free in return for an honest review.