Monkey in the Middle: A Novel [Hardcover]

Josh Pryor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003

A wild and intriguing read, Josh Pryor’s Monkey in the Middle calls to mind the futuristic satire of Kurt Vonnegut, the edgy neo-noir of Jonathan Lethem, and the maniacal narrative charge of Chuck Palahniuk. Set at the cusp of the future on the seedier sides of Los Angeles, Monkey in the Middle is a suspenseful and hilarious tale of reckless genetic engineering, post-traumatic stress disorder, and tainted love. Besmirched by his participation in the botched Operation Slay Dracula—an elaborate mission to assassinate Saddam Hussein—down-and-out Gulf War veteran Dutch Flowers returns to L.A. with a bad case of “compassion fatigue”—and acute paranoia. After scraping by for years as a small-time private investigator, he lands a lucrative job with a mysterious genetics research corporation investigating the murder of a lab chimp at their Sapiens Trial Facility, or STF, a sort of hybridized ecosystem—Brave New World meets the Biosphere. The assignment leads him into a labyrinth of dark streets, strange clues, and ominous characters. Meanwhile, his marriage is falling apart, and Saddam Hussein has dispatched a cross-dressing assassin nicknamed Mr. Wonderful to put him out of his misery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ambitious and intermittently funny, this debut satire sends up both detective and sci-fi genres with its story of simian mayhem. Dutch Flowers is a sad sack investigator charged with solving a murder at the Acteon Corporation, a Los Angeles biotech firm. Acteon breeds and studies genetically enhanced chimpanzees. One of its subjects, 99, has apparently been murdered by a fellow ape, and Dutch's job is to figure out which of the other chimps is the perp. Dutch himself is a former CIA assassin whose mission went spectacularly-and famously-wrong during the Gulf War. Now Dutch is being hounded by an Iraqi extortionist, which is why he decides to accept the assignment. Pryor's premise is a winner, spawning some hilarious deadpan observations ("I managed to establish the whereabouts of 35 chimps during the time period in which 99's murder had taken place") as well as inspired sequences, including a flashback in which Dutch and fellow CIA assassins interrupt a cohort of Saddam's prostitutes on their way to work, only to find that the women are more resourceful than the U.S.'s best black ops. But for every lean, hard-bitten comment, there's a counterpart bloated by too much exposition or studied hipness ("The bungled bid for the life of the dictator the American motorist loved to hate would make the fall of Saigon look like the wrap party for a B-movie"). One can only hope for more consistent work from the talented Pryor in the future.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This free-swinging romp through L.A.'s urban jungle finds Gulf War veteran Dutch Flowers tracking a killer chimpanzee from an exotic research lab even as he attempts to relocate his own humanity. Dutch was fed compassion-killing drugs to prepare him for Operation Slay Dracula, a last-ditch effort to assassinate Saddam Hussein before launching all-out war. The botched hit has left Dutch more hard-boiled than a 20-minute egg, and now he's being forced to pay for the sex-change operation of his would-be assassin, a perfumed Iraqi goon known only as Mr. Wonderful. So when the shadowy Acteon Corporation offers him $50,000 to finger a murderous simian, how can Dutch resist? "I needed to think like a chimp who thought like a man," he muses, but it soon becomes clear that the chimps are making a monkey out of him. Crazy though it may be, the story provides a bunch of bananas for thought about the similarities between us and our animal cousins. And fans of satirical noir will find plenty to ooh-ooh over here. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786711736
• ISBN-13: 978-0786711734
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Monkey in the Middle, February 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Monkey in the Middle: A Novel (Hardcover)

Absolutley loved it.Funny and well written. Can't wait to hear more from Josh Pryor. Could not put it down. One thing, my book club had to keep a dictionary close at hand.

5.0 out of 5 stars Something new and interesting, a page turner, December 12, 2010

By 

Ron - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey in the Middle: A Novel (Hardcover)

In Pryor's "Monkey in the Middle" you never know what to expect. From heroin addicted apes to transvestite assassins the plot and characters in this book are unusual in the best way. A very funny read and a page turner as well. A very enjoyable read if you want to try something new.

One Love Pryor!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great sentences, so-so book, September 11, 2003

By 

ra2sky "ra2sky" (the left coast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey in the Middle: A Novel (Hardcover)

When I started reading this book I thought I had a real winner. Pryor's sentences are awesome--full of creative metaphor and unique use of language. The problem was that after while, all the great sentences, one after another, started to seem long and stilted. Don't get me wrong, there are some well-thought plot twists and pretty hilarious characters (a transsexual assassin working for Saddam Hussein!?), but unfortunately the writing style gets in the way of plot and character development. I found myself skimming the paragraphs trying to get the gist of the plot and move on. This is too bad, because some of those passages were probably worth reading. Too much of a good thing, maybe?