A Dirty Job: A Novel. Christopher Moore. HarperCollins. 2007.

Book review by Joel
Another gem from Christopher Moore. I love his imagination. This book is about Charlie Asher who runs a consignment shop and whose wife is dead. He finds out in a roundabout way that he has been recruited to become one of the “death merchants”, or people who assist in helping the departed depart. His newborn daughter is starting to show signs of strange powers and he can hear talking in the sewers and storm drains.

This book is darkly humorous but funny as hell. There is a recurring character, ”Minty Green”, who is a tall black man dressed in a light green suit. He is the same character from Coyote Blue, and he helps explain the basics of being a death merchant to Charlie. His help at the store is Lily, a Goth girl who is perfect as a Death groupie. The story gets weirder as it goes and is really good. There is a Russian woman who watches the baby for Charlie who compares everything to bears in Russia, it was big,…like bear. Strong, …like bear. I catch myself doing that but no one knows what the hell I am talking about.

Highly recommend this book, and his website, http://www.chrismoore.com/ , where he also gives a list of other books he or others recommend. A very good site.

Joel.

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