Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas. 1991. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Pocket.
Rating:
8
Summary:
Richard Duffy, an up and coming computer programmer, decides to visit a professor he had in college, Reg. Reg quickly convinces the reader he is an eccentric Douglas Adams character and, without either of them knowing it, a 4 billion year old ghost is trying to take possession of their bodies.
Dirk Gently is a college classmate of Richard’s and once he becomes involved, the trio become engaged in so many converging plots that it will leave your mind spinning. From evolution to religion to murder and hypnosis and ghosts and aliens, the story finally closes with love and music by Bach and you’ll just have to read it to see how any of this summary makes sense.
Review:
If you have read anything else by Douglas Adams you don’t need to read this review because you’ll know if you like his work and, since this is typical Adams, you should like it. If, however, you have not read anything by Adams, you should know that he writes about science, science fiction, and religion and he does it all in such away that you come away from his work in stitches and having thought about things a little bit deeper.
As is also typically the case with Adams, he introduces what seem to be completely disparate characters and amazingly ties them all together before he is done. The writing is witty and flowery (and British – though I hate to admit it, I read the word ‘boot’ probably 20 times before I realized he was talking about the ‘trunk’ of the car).
Anyway, I’m not sure I am saying much of worth here, so I’ll just say that I absolutely love Douglas Adams’ work. I think a large part of that comes from him poking fun of religion (the rest being the excellent and hilarious writing). Anyway, if you’re kind of into science (especially science fiction) and can laugh at yourself and your religion (if you have one), you should love this book.