Jeff Klima's morbid memoir is fast-paced, laugh-out-loud funny, irreverent and at times engrossing (emphasis on the gross). If you're a fan of Elmore Leonard, David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino, you'll love this book. I sure did.
How often do you get the chance to knock around the world behind the yellow crime scene tape? Klima takes you there in explicit detail. He pulls back the curtain on this sanctum sanctorum to reveal a place where nobody wants to go. Sometimes that even includes him.
In some ways this is almost a business book. Even this dirty business isn't an overnight success. As the new kids on the block, Orange County Crime Scene Cleaners have a hard time making a name for themselves. But when the phone starts ringing, Klima and company are fighting congested LA traffic to clean up someone's mess.
And what messes! Convicts throw child molesters out fifth story windows; people commit suicides in bathtubs and aren't discovered for days; gang shootings take teenagers in Toyota's and it all has to be cleaned up.
In the hands of a less talented author, this book would simply be a travelogue of gruesome detail. Klima doesn't take this road. He rejects the, "and then I cleaned up this guy who jumped off the overpass," way of storytelling to keep you dialed in to the next 911 call.
You sweat along with him in the incredibly hot hazmat suit. Learn that Simple Green and common bleach will clean up just about anything. And discover that while no one can negotiate their way out of death - you can (and definitely should) haggle your way to a better price on the cleanup.
Klima shines a bright light on this black comedy. You may not always like what you see, but The Dead Janitors Club is a book you'll never forget.
Author: Jeff Klima
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Penned: June 2010
Time Out: You'll devour the 352 pages like hot-buttered popcorn. Once you start, you won't be able to put it down.
Beach Worthy: I read it on the beach, but Klima's compelling prose had me smelling Clorox.
Available: Amazon.com