Holy Crap! I’ve finished two books this year! It’s more amazing how I got Detective read entirely within the same year as Guns, Germs & Steel took over a year.
I have a quick, serious question for the experts on human learning and development. Do periodicals count? I know I plow through magazine and newspaper articles. Books go into greater depth on many subjects yet sometimes you gotta’ see what’s up in the news, or as Historians call it, the first draft of History.
Since I completed a serious book, I went with an entertaining, light comedic novel by the always funny John Swartzwelder and his inept private dick, Frank Burley. Yikes, I haven’t read anything involving him in seven years! I’m confident he’s had additional adventures I need to buy via Kindle to catch up.
This time, Frank has decided to return to being a detective but to drum up business he has bought a used jetpack developed by the Nazis during WWII. He figures he can solve crimes faster and pass the savings on to his customers, quite a gimmick. Being Frank, it doesn’t pan out because the jetpack is unwieldy, resulting in numerous injuries. It isn’t a complete wash. His home of Central City is plagued by a crime wave in the industrial district. All the robbers are taking are manufacturing materials. What makes it even weirder, the majority are some kind of robots led by Napoleon, or somebody who thinks he is. Will Frank solve it? The true question is whether or not Frank figures it out directly or gets sucked in as he has with past mysteries.
Detective continues Swartzwelder’s traditional humor with the wordplay, references to old-timey stuff he excelled at with The Simpsons and Frank’s inability to frustrate his enemies through pure idiocy. Another quick read you could get through in a day if you put aside say a long afternoon. Besides the Sci-Fi and Noir tropes, Detective brings in the well-worn Spy-Fi ones. A must read for Simpson fans and anyone who loves absurd humor. It would be cool if the show brought John back for a one-shot episode as they’ve done for the equally talented Nell Scovell. Then he could boast on the book covers how he’s written 60 episodes, a nice rounded-off number!