Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - Christopher Moore

Madness... this novel is complete and total madness from beginning to end. Returning once again to Pine Cove we can only call this a sequel to "Practical Demonkeeping" in that it takes place in Pine Cove several years after Catch has been taken care of. The Demon is referenced once and several of the town's folk are back, specifically Mavis, owner of the "Head of the Slug" tavern, Jenny - Still working as a waitress, and HP, who is still recovering from Pine Cove's last battle with the bizarre.

Theo is the town constable of Pine Cove and boy does he have a rough week ahead of him. Starting with a suicide and ending with a random sea beast named Steve terrorizing and consuming the weaker minded people of Pine Cove, as Theo says - I didn't get training for this. The maddening series of events that drives this novel to its completely insane and fun filled ending includes the town shrink replacing everyone's meds with placebos, a mad biologist studying rats and chasing them all over town, A washed up and completely insane B-Movie queen tearing about town wielding a sword and wearing only her barbarian bikini, Theo's boss - The sheriff who has a few secrets of his own and Catfish - a blues singer who has seen Steve the Sea Beast before.

Moore manages to hit a level of comedic insanity in this book, without ever losing control of it, which is amazing in itself. As always his characters are strange, wacky, and entirely loveable. The plot, though insane, is always fun, and his dialogue is spot on. All Moore fans have their favorite book, this is rarely listed, the reason being that many of his others (Bloodsucking Fiends, Biff, and Dirty Jobs) have much stronger plotlines while retaining the completely mad characters that everyone falls in love with. This is stronger than his first novel "Practical Demonkeeping" but not as strong as some of his others. If you are an avid Moore fan, I would suggest reading this after Demonkeeping, if you have never read Moore before, I would suggest starting with either "Bloodsucking Fiends" or "The Gospel According to Biff." Still I highly recommend this to Moore fans, it's a fun ride and you will find yourself giggling throughout.

Parent note - Moore's books are NOT okay for kids. There is foul language, bizarre sex scenes, and often a few gross death scenes.

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