The Dead Janitor’s Club is an exposé into the life of a dead beat, drop out college frat dude and his unlikely career as a crime scene cleaner.

Jeff intersperses his crime scene dialogue with a much needed break from the gory with a bit of an understanding of where he’s come from – Mormon upbringing and such, but these vignettes do not always serve a higher purpose. You oftentimes find yourself wondering why exactly it’s crucial to know about his chubby high school life when it doesn’t add any value to the story of being a crime scene cleaner.

With exposé and behind the scenes tell all books, what you want is the really interesting, weird facts that you almost can’t believe. The book does deliver a fair dose of that, with an understanding of how incompetent these crime scene businesses can be, but there is a lack of consistent narrative of the weird and wacky places they were called to in order to make it great.

I was particularly irritated by the consistent referral to AIDS. “I’ve got brain in my eye, I might get AIDS”. “She was old, so it’s unlikely she had AIDS”. Etc. etc. It w as not once or twice that AIDS was considered derogatory (and I get it, it’s not a nice thing to contract and Jeff very well could have exposed himself to some infection opportunities) but it also felt as the easiest derogatory disease that he might end up with. Insensitive to those who he writes about, and just a little old when you’ve read it more than three times.

The book holds a certain charm at the beginning – a near destitute story that will turn into a tale of riches and good fortune, but it very quickly turns out to be less of that and more whining about the business, and his lack of foresight into what could happen with the jobs in the future. The tales of clients become repetitive and this is sad to say – but boring as you hear about him scrubbing bodily fluid off the floor over and over again.

There are some interesting case studies, Dodger Stadium and the Sewer House being prime examples of a good story, but some of the others lack that punch.

Jeff himself doesn’t do his character any favors, and often comes across as callous and money hungry, and whilst he acknowledges this in the book, there’s a sad lack of growth in his character by the end of the novel.

I think there are perhaps more sensitively written insights into the crime scene cleaning business, and whilst there are a few chuckles to be had, overall it just leaves a bad smell, much like the bodies we read so much about.