Killer Vibes, by Jack Friday (REVIEW) — Inheriting a Hot Mess, a Bag of Money, and... a Murder(!)

An aimless but likeable twenty-nine-year-old, currently crashing in someone’s garage during another sweltering Texas summer. 

(And not a pimped-out one, either; he’s crammed in with a bunch of stuff the owner stores there.)

The problem is, jobs have never really stuck with him, so for years he’s just been floating from one situation to the next, smoking blunt after blunt and hooking up with other attractive men and beautiful women at every opportunity.

But one day his casual, wake-and-bake lifestyle is thrown for a loop by a stranger’s arrival... a lawyer, who brusquely informs him that he’s the sole heir to his uncle’s fortune. 

And that he needs to go to Austin (a place he’s never been) right now, to claim it.

Full of questions without answers, Peter Key can’t begin to imagine the dangers awaiting him, in the debut of Jack Friday’s new unlikely-sleuth series, Killer Vibes.

 

The first question Peter has is why him? He’d only met Uncle Forrest a handful of times—and the last was more than a decade earlier.

Yet here he is, newly in possession of a prime piece of real estate in one of Austin’s poshest neighborhoods... and a house that had been simultaneously neglected and filled to bursting.

(Ever seen one of those reality shows about hoarders? Yeah, Peter’s new digs are like that.)

Second, Peter wonders: Why does everyone seem hellbent on persuading him to get rid of the property immediately? Because no matter where he goes, there’s another person asking him to sell.

But it’s when he finds a big duffel bag stuffed with money, buried deep in the mess—and things start getting scary, real fast—that the most important questions pop up.

What the hell was his uncle mixed up in?

Did whatever it was get him killed?

And, will a similar fate soon befall his nephew... or can he—and Grady, the no-nonsense P.I. he’s hired to help figure out what’s really going on—find a solution that leaves the house, the cash, and Peter’s life intact?

 

Author Jack Friday has placed a fantastic and fresh amateur detective on the scene with Peter Key. 

Young, handsome, bisexual, and lackadaisical—as well as surprisingly savvy and quick-thinking—Peter shows more depth of character than most people would probably give him credit for. 

(I suspect that’ll end up making him a pretty decent P.I., even though he refers to himself a few times—from some future point—as the “laziest private investigator in Texas.” 😂)

There’s a nice amount of local color, too... and undoubtedly even more of that to come in Peter’s future escapades, once he’s fully settled into the whole “Austin weird” vibe.

And what about the multiple mysteries facing Peter in Killer Vibes?  

They’re doozies, with all manner of things I didn’t see coming... and each is wrapped up in highly satisfying fashion by the last page. 

I grinned, chuckled, pondered, and raised my eyebrows in surprise a few times, through this one... and am already eagerly waiting for Peter’s next outing.

If you’re in the mood for an audaciously cheeky voice in amateur sleuthing, Killer Vibes might be just what you’ve been looking for.
~GlamKitty

 

 

[Thanks to Minotaur Books and St. Martin's Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]