Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by, Douglas Adams

After re-reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy in December, I became interested in Douglas Adams’s other main works (namely the two Dirk Gently novels). So, I went to Amazon and ordered the first Gently book. The first chapter was interesting in the fact that it didn’t seem very Douglas Adams-y. It reminded me a lot of the beginning of Life, the Universe, and Everything were Adams was very vague in using a lot of he’s, it’s, and the’s. Then, the second chapter convinced me that the book was indeed going to be like the HHGTTG trilogy. It read, “High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse.”

From there the story involves a search for a missing cat, a bewildered ghost, a secret time-traveler, and the devastating secret that lies behind the whole of human history and threatens to bring it to a premature end. Adams weaves these elements together with the help of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" (don't ask). Unlike most detective fictions, Gently isn’t even the main character in the novel. In fact, he doesn’t show up for nearly 100 pages. He is indeed a different kind of detective. He is a private detective who is more interested in telekinesis, quantum mechanics, and lunch than fiddling around with fingerprint powder.

I’m not even going to start unraveling the plot. I tried several times to write summarize it here, but it's just too convoluted to do justice to without spoiling the surprises. I figured out what was going on, but I had to go to DouglasAdams.com to be absolutely sure.

If you’re looking for more Douglas Adams zaniness and off-the-wall characters, I recommend Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I know I’m going to pick up its sequel The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul very soon.

Update (12/20/11): And I did read the sequel not too much later. Considering, again, that it's been nearly 7 years (holy crap!) since I read both books, my memory is a little hazy.  Though I do remember that Gently being a bit tighter, if such a thing is possible with an Adams book, and funnier than Teatime.  The later book had something to do with abandoned ancient gods like Thor running amok because nobody worshiped them any more.  Here's some trademark Adams humour from Teatime:

"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport.'

Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only known exception to this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs."

Looking over this old review, I feel the urge to reread both books.  They're short, so I might just do so.

Posted on the old blog 2/19/2005.