The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hays

The case of Fred brings up a good question: If an accountant turns into a vampire would anybody notice?  I mean somebody who doesn't go out during the day with a pallid complexion and their social life is dominated by business could describe either if you think about it. The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hays is a truly unique take on a popular Urban Fantasy subject.   From Butcher to Harris to Meyer to Rice we've seen some ideas of what a modern vampire's day to day life might look like.  Action, danger and romance around each corner  gives an alluring picture of that  life could be.  Then there's Fred.

At the beginning of this book his best bet for excitement might have been becoming the accountant for one of the more popular of his kind. While the idea of an accountant vampire (vampire accountant?) may be fresh this book does rely on many familiar character types as well as the relationships among them.  Even so, the characters are more archetype than stereotype.  Some of the characters I thought would be somewhat flat and just background in the beginning wound up more rounded and interesting later in the book.  Of course, Fred goes through his own growth and becomes a somebody a bit more interesting.

This book is more a collection of short stories that blend well together.  They build off each other very well and keep a pace throughout the book that makes it easy to stay engaged until the end.  The stories are variations of some we've seen before but, they are done in a way that makes them entertaining none the less.  Using the settings of Los Angeles and Las Vegas gives these stories the darkened danger we look for in the genre.  The author also did a very good job of capturing that 'dark gritty danger lurking behind the glitz and glamor' feel at both locations.

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hays is an entertaining yet easy read.  It takes an almost light-hearted approach to a subject matter that has such a dark side.  It gets pretty violent and has some frank discussions of a mature nature which is why I would put it at a solid PG13 rating.