Author: Drew Hayes
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne
Total listening time  (7 hrs 2 min) (9 hrs 19 mins) (9hrs 58min)  26 hrs 19 mins

This series is subtle, funny, quaint, and yet still adventurous.  It follows the story of Fred…obviously, who is an accountant and as the title suggest… a vampire.

The books are written in a kind of diary like format, with each book having 5 main stories and while each story is a separate event / adventure, they build on each other as Fred is meeting new people, unintentionally having adventures, and sicovering more about the para-normal world he is suddenly a part of.

The books in the series so far are:

Book 1: The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant
Book 2: Undeath and Taxes
Book 3: Bloody Acquisitions

Click on each of these to read their individual reviews. They all open in a new tab

But essentially …. As once again, I know a lot of you won’t be bothered to click on them and read them here’s a little summary of each of the books.

Frederich Frankford Fletcher lives a generally boring life, working as an accountant… one day he is killed and wakes up as a vampire, and as he is a more timid kind of human and doesn’t really like to intrude on others, just transitions to his new ‘life’ as a vampire, still living his generally boring life, but instead buying blood from a local hospital in exchange for doing the hospital’s taxes, setting up his own business, working from home at night and that’s about it.
However, this all changes when he meets his old high-school flame and finds out she is an agent for for a division of the government that deals with the paranormal world.

The para-humans described in the book go in a different direction than many of the movies, tv-shows and books having the same para-human kind of characters.  Fred isn’t suave and always handsome, Were-wolves aren’t constantly insane, the myths & legends for all creatures don’t neccesarily apply.

Book 1 Fred the Vampire Accountant 

  1. High School reunion – where he reunites with his high school flame Krystal who is actually an agent for the paranormal division of the government
    2. LARP in the Park – Where Krystal takes him on an investigation into a possible necromancer (raising the dead) case
    3. Las Vegas – Where Fred is introduced to a soon to be friend Bubba (a were-steed) & the Draconians (human dragon hybrids that secretly run Las Vegas)
    4. Missing Mage – Where Fred & his friends have to find a mutual friend
    5. A monster in the Pews – Where Fred’s make unexpectedly returns & threatens Fred’s friends if he doesn’t truly become a raging vampire like what was intended.
    The serial/ diary like format is continuous, in the way that all stories are leading onto each other yet at the same time, it ends fairly abruptly, but you can feel there is way more room for more stories, which is a great feeling.

Book 2 Undeath & Taxes

  1. An accountant in the warehouse
    – In which Fred has attained his ‘Certified Public Para-human Accountant’ license and is trying to establish himself as the go-to guy in his area for para-humans that need such additional services like para-human tax advantages.  His 1st client is Richard, mayor of the Therians (were-creatures).  It just so happens that Richard is an involuntary participant in a potential leadership challenge for which Fred gets himself caught in, as he’s on premise at the time.
  2. An agent at the convention 
    – In which Fred & Krystal attend Calcu-Con, a convention for para-humans and we learn about the weapons of destiny.
  3. A sword in the catacombs
    – In which the gang accompanies Albert which has to go to an Agent certified secure location testing for a new situation that has come up.
  4. A lawyer in the manor
    – Where Fred is competing for a large new accounting (non para-human) contract and ends up adding a new para-human contract instead.
  5. A dragon in the office
    – The gang attends a celebration held by the mayor of the Therians to celebrate a peaceful transition of the joining of 2 clans, but not all is right with all the guests and it falls to Fred to help solve the mystery.

Book 3 Bloody Acquisitions

  1. A hunter in the streets– Fred is targeted by an unwieldy ‘monster hunter’.
  2. A sheriff in the country– Fred and Krystal take a holiday to an all para-human town called Burback, 1 of only 5 in the country, for which Albert the zombie is meeting with another ‘Sword of Destiny’ wielder.
  3. A lawyer in the mansion– Fred joins forces with a lawyer who has been recently introduced to the para-human world as the accountant to help solve the inheritance dispute between 2 mages (magic wielders) after their father has died.
  4. A spy in the company– in which the vampire wanting to move into Fred’s city is formerly introduced to Fred, whilst trying to find the mighty ‘Vampire that is highly connected and for which even a dragon considers him a friend’
  5. An accountant in the city– Fred has to resolve the issue of dealing with the other vampires coming into his territory without being absorbed into such a violent clan, and try’s to avoid relocating/fleeing to Burback.

Easter Eggs
In the chapter ‘A lawyer in the manor’ (Book 2), we find out that the laws and customs that guide the para-normal world are published in plain sight in the game manual for ‘Swords, Spells & Stealth’ which is an obscure role-playing game.
The hidden gem or ‘Easter egg’, is that this is actually another one of Drew Hayes books, so it’s very interesting to see this kind of cross-over between the ‘real’ world’ which Fred the Vampire inhabits, and the game world which the characters from NPC’s live in.
Read about that book here.

Narration
Kirby Heyborne does the narration for all 3 books and it is fantastic.  He does a great job at giving variation to the many different characters.

I think… Albert the zombie- upbeat voice, great.
Morgan the Draconian – one of the posh commanding figures which is apparently a human, dragon hybrid. You can feel the authority when he speaks.
Richard a wear-lion – who is mayor of the city, a growl is always at the back of his voice.

Gideon (the dragon) and Fred for which I can genuinely feel his true character through the voice.  Subdued but eloquent.

Story telling
I will write more about this later in his other books, but Drew Hayes is an amazing story teller.

I absolutely love it, the characters are well crafted and the world in which they live is incredibly well thought out, which often challenges the common narrative of what paranormal beings are like.  Listening to many of these books from Drew Hayes has made me really wanting to learn how to write a book.  I think to get the process just right is amazing.  And Drew Hayes seems to have so much skill in doing exactly that.

In one of my reviews I recommended that you even listen to some of his interviews where he’s talking about how he comes up with ideas, and how he organises them and everything.  He’s a very interesting guy, very smart… and for now my new favourite author.

This particular book is no exception.

And his other books, for which I’ll do a full Drew Hayes book overview on soon are just as amazing.

If anyone’s interested… here’s a link to 1 of the interviews I watched.

Recommendation
I would highly recommend this series.  I’ve listened to the whole series twice now.  and I’m eagerly awaiting the 4th book.

After listening to the 1st book…primarily because I had listened to other Drew Hayes books… no, the title didn’t really draw me in.. I immediately bought the 2nd and 3rd books in the series… so that’s saying something.

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