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The Manual Of Detection (2009)

by Jedediah Berry(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1594202117 (ISBN13: 9781594202117)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Penguin Press HC, The

review 1: Charles Uniwin is a clerk at the great Detective Agency. His job has consisted thus far of writing up the relevant details of the cases of the Agency's greatest detective, Sivart, from Sivart's reports. One day Sivart goes missing and Unwin is given an unprecedented, and unwanted, promotion from clerk to detective and his whole world spins out of control. A fun and stylish literary thriller with hat tips to Kafka (minor) and Borges (major). Recommended; especially to those who enjoy their mysteries with plentiful touches of the Weird thrown in for good measure.
review 2: I wasn't sure about this one at first but it won me over. It seemed a little too much like a pastiche, even if it's a pastiche of stuff I love: Kafka, Murakami, Angela Carter, Paul Auster, ... moreTerry Gilliam, Borges, Calvino. Lots of good stuff, and this book conveys their vibe well. But it also seemed like there were too many plot elements and unique aspects of this novel's world that I had to keep in mind. I was paying too much attention to keeping track of it all, and less on loving the characters and the story. But I found myself getting into it by about the third-to-halfway mark. The end happened a little too quickly, I thought, with some compacted exposition to explain it all, but I didn't mind by then. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing. less

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