Noir by Christopher Moore

Noir: A Novel by Christopher Moore --- 339 pages including an Afterword.

The hard boiled hero of the detective story has become pretty much a cliche over the years. Christopher Moore demonstrates how to blow up that cliche in Noir.

Our hero, Sammy, is a sad and lonely loser who works at a seedy bar run by a small time crook in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The year is 1947, which is significant because a key element of the plot revolves around the mysterious crash of a government plane in Roswell, New Mexico in June 1947.

Sammy's life becomes complicated by the arrival of a crate that his nosy boss opens and the unexpected arrival of an amazing dame named Stilton (after the cheese).

Sammy thinks he's found the One in Stilton, and she reciprocates with equal enthusiasm. When suddenly Stilton vanishes, Sammy's desperate to find her. Aided by an amazing collection of friends and bystanders, Sammy rescues Stilton from a close encounter with prototype Men in Black.

Along the way we get a tour of 1940s San Francisco, from Chinatown to Dark Town, where African Americans, migrating from the South to work in the shipyards during the war, rented the houses left empty when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. We catch a glimpse of the female drag clubs of North Beach and the Bohemian Club, that all male bastion of privilege where rich men could indulge in privacy. Moore's recreation of the times and mores is, of course, politically uncorrect by today's standards, but accurate to the time and place of 1940s America. But since many of Sammy's friends are are among those who bear the brunt of discrimination, we are also seeing it from their perspective too.

Moore says in his Afterword that he set our to write "noir" but wound up with "perky noir" instead. Let's just say it's definitively vintage "Moore."

Click HERE to read a review from the Chicago Tribune.

Click HERE to read a review from the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Click HERE to read a review from  the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

Secondhand Souls: A Novel by Christopher Moore --- 335 pages

Secondhand Souls, is a sequel to A Dirty Job (2006), and continues the adventures of the Death Merchants, the folks who collect and resell the souls of the departed — and their battle to keep the forces of the Underworld from taking over San Francisco.

Our hero, Charlie Asher, died in A Dirty Job, but his soul lives on in a 14-inch tall meat puppet that was put together in a hurry from spare animal parts and lunch meat by the arcane powers of Charlie's Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey.

Then there's Mike Sullivan, who paints the Golden Gate Bridge for a living. One day Mike is confronted by the 223-year-old ghost of a beautiful Spanish girl who is pining for the lover who never came back to claim her.  She tells him the bridge is crowded with thousands of ghosts of lost souls, waiting to be rescued. By Mike. All he has to do is find and foil the Ghost Thief.

And I haven't even mentioned Charlie's seven-year-old daughter Sophie, who happens to be the Luminatus, the Ultimate Death-Dealer. Sophie is guarded by two immortal Hellhounds, Alvin and Mohammed. Or the Taser-wielding banshee who is suddenly keening death and destruction all over town because Charlie's old adversaries, the Morrigan, are back with a mysterious yellow stranger in tow.

Christopher Moore is NOT --- I repeat --- NOT for everyone, but if you enjoy no-holds-barred, wickedly deranged black comedy, you will not find anyone better.

Click HERE for a review from the Dallas News.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore --- 326 pages

A comic mash up of Shakespeare (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear) and Edgar Allan Poe (The Cask of Amontillado) with Marco Polo and a Chinese Water Dragon thrown into the mix, along with a large dollop of ribald sexuality and Moore's distinctive snarky humor flavoring the stew.

This is a sequel of sorts to Moore's 2009 novel, Fool, although it can be read on its own. Moore may be an acquired taste but it's one that a lot of people are starting to acquire. Even if you HATED Shakespeare in high school, you will bust a gut laughing at Moore's version of events, complete with bloody ghost --- because there's ALWAYS a bloody ghost! Will would approve.