A Dirty Job

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Category: Fiction Grade: A

Moore is probably one of those authors that you've never heard of unless you've heard of him. I stumbled across one of his books years ago -- a book called The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Its just what it sounds like - the story of a prehistoric beast that crawls out of the ocean in the village of Melancholy Cove and makes everybody around, well, horny. Very few books make me laugh out loud but this one did and I was hooked. Just the titles of Moore's books can be hysterical - Island of the Sequined Love Nun - and, of course, the one before this one -- Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Moore is the most consistently funny writer out there. If you read his stuff on the bus, people will stare!

His latest, A Dirty Job, is the story of Charlie Asher. His young adored wife dies in childhood and when Death (well, actually small "d" death since there are lots of them) comes in to collect her soul, Charlie sees him. He's hard to miss since he's a seven foot tall black guy dressed completely in mint green, but a "death" at work is supposed to be invisible to everybody. The upshot is that Charlie has been chosen somehow to become one of the "deaths". His job is to collect the souls of the recently departed and recycle them to some other person in need of a soul. Hmmm -- doesn't sound very funny, but you gotta trust me, it is.

The plot revolves around the fact that, if any of the "deaths" screw up, the forces of the Dark Underworld get stronger and, eventually will come back above and take over the world. Needless to say, there are some great battles with the underworld characters, especially the "sewer harpies" - not your Steven King kind of battles - much more entertaining. While taking care of his job, Charlie also to continue to run his second store, deal with his employees - a teenage Goth and an ex-cop looking for love on the Internet, raise his daughter Sophie and her pets the giant hellhounds.

Most comic novels have this problem - they're impossible to explain in a way that gets the humor across. But this one - for that matter any of Moore's books - defy explanations and keep you laughing.