Undeath and Taxes is the second book in the Fred, the Vampire Accountant series by Drew Hayes. It was published 2015 by REUTS Publications, LLC, while the audiobook I listened to was published, with a full cast, by Graphic Audio. The story itself is a Paranormal Comedy, and a direct sequel to the first book with a similar theme that the book is divided into smaller parts, like episodes in a television series.
Fred the accountant is back with his zombie assistant, agent girlfriend, Werepony friend and many more quirky characters as Fred takes on dragons taking an interest in him, houses given consciousness, and his zombie assistant being chosen by the Sword of unlikely heroes. All of these incidents demand him to gather his courage, roll up his sleeve and run like there is no tomorrow to survive. The life of a vampire is never glorious.
Overall, the characters are the same as in the last book. We get a bit more development by Niall, sorry if his name isn’t spelled like that, the necromancer who raised Albert, as this book spend about one to two pages discussing his feelings on Albert suddenly being called to a higher purpose. Just like in the first book, the characters are meant to be funny, likable, relatable with only a bit of seriousness to top it all of nicely. Either you like them or you hate them.
I love the lore of this series, the author introduces more and more of it in each part and builds on what we know of the first book, making the worldbuilding quite excellent, and as I adore the characters, I do enjoy this book as much, if not more, as I did with the first one. The problem is still the lack of development of the characters. We get some in the first one and this one, but both follow a similar concept. We get to know about Crystal, Fred’s girlfriend in the first one. Here we get to find out more about Niall the Necromancer. But we hardly know anything about Fred other than people calling him a coward, though he constantly shows the opposite. It has become silly by this point, and that he lived a boring life. I guess the author tries to tell us that he is nothing special which is why he doesn’t have a backstory, but I feel like he feels less of a person in some cases because we hardly know what shaped him or why he is the way he is.
In one of the parts, the author addresses a bit on why Fred is in love with Crystal, pretty much summing it up to, because she is Crystal, which is nice and because I felt like they had spent more time together, much of their relationship makes more sense by now. But that was bound to happen by some point.
I also like, though I suspect that people might not do the same, that the author has started to merge his profession into the story. It is after all in the title, so I do like that his accounting actually matters in the story by having it led to the different incidents. One is even solved entirely by his accounting, and it also has started to make him friends in high places that give him a standing in this world the author has started to build. It makes me feel like though Fred overall might be a bit lacking, though enjoyable, he is moving forward as a character.
As you might have noticed, I did like this book. I adored the worldbuilding, it feels fresh compared to other supernatural stories I have read lately, often taking tropes to turn them on their head. The writing is more solid than the first so we see that the author has improved as he went along. If it was something I would, well not critic, but warn about which is that this book isn’t as focused on the comedy as the first book so if you went into the first book because of the comedy then this one might not hit as well. I didn’t mind and found it to be lighthearted enough, and mixing the serious moments just right, for me to adore this story. I would give it a 9 out of 10, only removing 1 point because of the lacking character development that comes from the story being divided into small parts, but I do think that everything else makes up for this flaw.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 