Book Review: The Year of Eating Dangerously by James Scott Bell

Goodreads Summary: The dead shall rise ... and approach the bench!

As a lawyer, Mallory Caine considers it her duty to defend the innocent. As a flesh-eating zombie, she knows how to take a bit out of crime. So when a scared ten-year-old boy asks for her help—claiming that his mother wants to eat him—Mallory rises to the occasion. Unfortunately, the occasion is a Satanic ritual, the mom is a monster, and the boy is a sacrifice.

Before you can say, "The devil made me do it," Mallory is caught dead center between a family of freaks, fire-breathing demons, and the final battle of good versus evil. If she doesn't have enough on her plate, the brain-chomping lawyer has to defend her zombie-hunting father in court. And, oh yeah: her flesh-eating secret is about to be exposed by a sexy LAPD detective who's good enough to eat. What's a zombie girl to do?

Goodreads Rating: 3.90 stars with 10 ratings

Genre listing: Zombies, Legal Thriller, Fiction

Previous reviews on the series: Pay Me in Flesh

Goodreads Challenge: 25/60

Reading Challenge: #38 Second book in a trilogy (find the full challenge here) 

Book Review:

I like the Mallory Caine, Zombie at Law series a lot more than I expected. It did take me a little longer to get into The Year of Eating Dangerously than it did the first one. I don't know if this was so much because of the book or just a "me" problem. It's entirely likely it's a "me" problem. I've been out of it lately.

Timeframe wise, I'm not sure how long after the first book this takes. It picks up with the demon activity in LA continuing. I think this is kind of where I started to lose some of the interest in the book, and why it took me a while to get into it. It's not that I don't like demon stories, I do. I just didn't really expect it with a Zombie story, and there are times where it gets a bit preachy for me. I understand that this is the bigger picture of the story, but it's not what draws me in. 

In case anyone read my review of Pay Me in Flesh, I still can't read Aaron Agrula properly. I think as long as he appears in the books, he is destined to be read as Aaron Arugula. His portion of the story actually surprised me. I feel like if I go too much into it, however, I'll be giving away spoilers. I thought that Nick was kind of an oddball, but also kind of endearing. I feel like I'm always drawn more to the sidekicks. 

Mallory is still witty and snarky, but I felt like her being a Zombie took a backseat for most of the book. Her Amanda persona didn't really make as much of an appearance, and I felt like the first half was more focused on the Demon aspect of the plot. There was an entire section of the book that was dedicated to making fun of the Clippers, and that made me laugh quite a bit. I'm a huge sports fan, and even though I don't follow basketball super close, I follow it enough to where the jokes made me actually laugh. 

Mallory's trials were what interested me the most about this book. I like the creativity that she brings to the case, and it's presented in a way that makes it entertaining to read and not bogged down with legal jargon. Mallory really kind of turns the courtroom into a circus, and it's just amusing. 

Overall, I really enjoyed The Year of Eating Dangerously by James Scott Bell. It's a quick read, and it's entertaining. While reading it, you really get a sense of the authors' legal experience and can tell that he lives in LA. The Zombie aspect provides a different twist to legal thrillers, and the snark provided by Mallory Caine is entertaining.