Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
‘Braineater Jones’ starts off with quite the mystery. A guy wakes up dead and has no memory of how he died or even who he is for that matter. He quickly develops a list of questions that he wants answers to and sets out to find those answers.
One of the first parts that I found so interesting was that the undead needed booze to survive and not turn into literal ‘braineaters’. This was a unique twist to all the ‘undead’ stories out there that I have read. These people had their own community and their own supplier of booze. This story takes place during the prohibition time frame, so not only was it hard enough to find booze, but to find someone to supply the undead was even more difficult.
Jones, (as he goes by because he can’t remember his own name), learns that most undead get their memory back within a few days, but he doesn’t. He is also given a job as a PI, fitting since he is trying to figure out who he was and how he died. After a couple of cases, he proves to be fairly good at his job and ends up partnering up The Head.
Now, I really liked The Head, Alcibe. He was often a voice of reason and logic for Jones. As much as Jones would seem to be irritated with him or act as though he didn’t care. Underneath all of it, there were points that showed, he indeed did care about his partner.
As Jones continues to push and prod, he finds himself in the middle of something bigger than he thought and the connection between what he discovers and his former life is quite intriguing. The storyline is fast paced and kept me turning the page to see what was coming next.
This book has several unique and fascinating points and I am sure I will miss some one! First, I loved the fact that these ‘undead’ were truly undead. They were walking, rotting corpses. They didn’t die and miraculously stay beautiful or any of that nonsense. There are graphic descriptions of scratching a scalp and a chunk falling off or how the character digs maggots out of his bullet hole. While reading the former I am both incredibly fascinated and extremely grossed out. It is awesome.
The next was the era that this book was set in. It was an interesting time and the use of slang words was well done and appropriate. I didn’t have any trouble figuring out what the character was talking about and the glossary at the back is really neat in case anyone does.
I really enjoyed the different settings in the book. The speakeasy was a cool home base of sorts and where The Fetus was camped out controlling the place. The brothel was so creative that I found myself thinking that the author definitely has one wickedly inventive imagination.
The ‘doctors’ of the undead are quite amazing too! The characters are well defined and easy to grow attached to. There wasn’t anything that I didn’t enjoy about this book. I look forward to reading more from this author. Great job! This is a must read, especially to all of those fans of the undead that are looking for something completely different and unique.
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