Having your noir story open with an amnesiac detective recovering after a failed attack on his life? That's a bit of a cliche. But having that attack succeed and the amnesiac awakening to discover he's undead and needs some booze to keep the rigor mortis from setting in? Now that's something more interesting, and that's what you get in Braineater Jones, a gloriously weird blend of horror, black comedy, and noir detective tale that manages to create something that feels wholly original out of its strange blend of elements. Author Stephen Kozeniewski succeeds in no small part by creating a nicely vivid world for Braineater (his self-applied nickname) to live in; it's a world where the undead unofficially exist and no one likes them much, where zombie brothels allow you to mix and match parts to make your own ideal woman, where booze is what literally keeps everyone moving, and where a severed head can make a pretty good career out of pretending to be a parrot carried around in a cage. But Braineater Jones wouldn't work without its glorious noir setting, prose, and plot, all of which combine to make a really intriguing story that definitely threw me for a loop more than a few times. Add to that a gleefully dark sense of humor and you have a real knockout - something that genuinely reads like little else out there and feels like a fully formed success from page one. It's exciting and grotesque, funny and thoughtful, engaging and entertaining, and just generally a great read. (And if, like me, you're a little wary of the growing "zombie" trend everywhere, don't be; this is so far from most zombie fiction that the label almost doesn't apply. This is more like a noir where dead people just don't take a hint, and keep walking around and stinking up the joint, and it's fantastic.)
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
