The death of the protagonist’s wife isn’t a conventional opening for most comic novels, but maybe that’s why there haven’t been a whole lot of decent comic novels written lately by people who weren’t named Christopher Moore.
A DIRTY JOB takes on the Big Sleep the same way Moore’s BLOODSUCKING FIENDS took on vampires and LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL took on Jesus. As Charlie Asher’s wife dies after giving birth to a daughter, Charlie must confront a) single parenthood and b) being forced to collect souls as one of the Grim Reaper’s foot soldiers. Things are never that simple, though, and a huge battle with the forces of capital “e” Evil is in the offing.
Though appealing, the narrative destination is only part of the story, as is the case with any of Moore’s books. Jokes come in fast and often, hitting the mark nearly all of the time. Whether a small one-off gag or a punch line arriving after 50 pages of build-up, Moore delivers the best humor writing currently seeing print on the planet.
Outside of that, A DIRTY JOB demonstrates that, despite this being his ninth novel, Moore’s style hasn’t become tired or hackneyed. At this point of his career, with golden reviews in The New York Times and cherished front-of-the-store display space at Borders, he could probably get away with phoning it in. But he doesn’t, and that’s pretty groovy. –Ryun Patterson
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