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2 stars
Came for a fun parody of the noir detective genre, got a weird incoherent pontificating mess instead.
I partially read a physical version of this book and partially listened to an audio recording of it which was probably the worst way to consume this media after I learned that it was an audio drama first that was later novelized. Consequently it was hard going back and forth because the audio version was essentially only the dialogue bits with all of the added prose present in the book form cut out. But I don't know that my overall rating would've been affected had I stuck to one medium all the way through.
This story leans on a lot of the old tropes you know from noir fiction: underworld crime bosses sending goons to rough people up, crooked cops, mysterious and sultry women with ulterior motives, etc. But it's also kind of …
Came for a fun parody of the noir detective genre, got a weird incoherent pontificating mess instead.
I partially read a physical version of this book and partially listened to an audio recording of it which was probably the worst way to consume this media after I learned that it was an audio drama first that was later novelized. Consequently it was hard going back and forth because the audio version was essentially only the dialogue bits with all of the added prose present in the book form cut out. But I don't know that my overall rating would've been affected had I stuck to one medium all the way through.
This story leans on a lot of the old tropes you know from noir fiction: underworld crime bosses sending goons to rough people up, crooked cops, mysterious and sultry women with ulterior motives, etc. But it's also kind of modern day in that everyone has cellphones, and the Arab Spring and Gaddafi are directly name dropped? It felt like a story that couldn't decide what time period it wanted to be set in, and I feel like the only reason it was "brought forward" at all was to allow the protagonist (and by extension, the author) to rant against young people, liberals, and vegetarians.
The plot is barebones, and there are entirely way too many characters too keep track of or care about. Women are tripping over themselves to throw their bodies at this man for poorly fleshed out reasons, and nothing that this book is trying to accomplish lands. I really need to just start staying away from any book that even remotely attempts to be funny.
