From Library Journal
This production includes two of Adams's Dirk Gently novels. Dirk is one of the odder creations in detective fiction, although he isn't odd by the standards of his creator, who also wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Dirk usually spends his time investigating odd coincidences and looking for lost cats; he believes in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things." This philosophy leads him to search for lost London cats on Bahamian beaches, much to the dismay of his clients, who get billed for his travel expenses. The plot in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency deals with an Electric Monk, an unhappy ghost, a lost alien who needs a body to inhabit, a time-traveling Cambridge professor, a couch stuck in a stairwell, and an old university buddy, Richard MacDuff, who is suspected of the murder of his boss, computer company millionaire Gordon Way, the unhappy ghost who doesn't know how to be dead. All of these elements are tied together into a peculiar and amusing tale. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul begins when Dirk oversleeps and misses an appointment with a client, who is found in his locked study, decapitated. The police are perfectly willing to ignore some very odd forensic evidence and declare the death a suicide. Dirk, driven by guilt and a fear of going back to his home (his refrigerator has started lurking in a very ominous way), decides to find out what the green-eyed, 7' horned creature that had been threatening his client knows about the so-called suicide. All he has to do is find the suspect. Once again, under Adams's existential guidance, it all connects in the end, whether one believes it or not. The author does an excellent job narrating his own work, for only he could probably read it aloud without giggling or going mad. Highly recommended for any library with an active sf/fantasy section, readers who enjoy British humor, and all Monty Python fans.ABarbara Rhodes, Northeast Texas Lib. Syst., Garland
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Adams, who is never funnier than when he's examining "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things," runs amuck in a world in which special monks worry about things like the color of the desert (so the rest of us don't have to), and detective Dirk Gently is available to investigate a murder when he's not out searching for missing cats. Adams is a fine, if fast, reader, and you have to figure no one knows better how he wants things pronounced, what timing he had in mind for the snappy replies (usually immediate and deadpan), and how to make everybody sound just one camel's hump smarter by using his natural English accent, leaving you, the listener, to do double takes and hit rewind just to make sure he really said what you thought you heard. M.C. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
