Sunday 7 October 2007

Bad Monkeys - Matt Ruff

"Fiendishly clever" Booklist

Jane Charlotte: A woman with a serious attitude problem, a drug habit and a licence to kill.
She has been arrested for murder, and during questioning tells police that she is a member of a secret organisation devoted to fighting evil. Her division "The Department For The Final Disposition Of Irredeemable Persons" or "Bad Monkeys" for short- is an execution squad that rids the world of especially evil people. However, the man Jane has been arrested for killing is not on the official target list.
This strange confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor interviews her at length about her supposed career as an assassin. Her tale grows increasingly bizzare, with references to hidden messages in crosswords, dollar bills that can see and scary axe-wielding clowns. The doctor does his best to sort truth from lies, but whenever it seems he's getting to the bottom of things, there's another twist to unravel.
Not until the full, extraordinary story is told will we learn whether Jane is lying, crazy...or playing a different game altogether.

Exciting, intriguing and fantastic, I loved it! I never once thought that Jane was lying, but greedily swallowed her story. There are twists and turns at the end of practically every chapter. The interviewing doctor keeps uncovering evidence that contardicts her story, yet I still kept rooting for Jane. Just when I thought I knew what to believe, what was happening, the story just turned on its head! Secret organizations, not usually my type of book, reminded me somewhat of The Matrix, and all the way through could imagine the story as a film (please?).
The exploration of what it means to be genuinely evil or good is effctive and never too deep, as the reader tries to work out if Jane herself is a "Bad Monkey".
Many of the reviewers drew comparisons with J.D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and also with Philip K Dick (who has a mention in the author's acknowledgements. The book is sci-fi and could be turned into a computer game as well as a film! The pace of the novel is really fast, and usually this results in a rubbish let down of an ending, but not in this case. I'm a real Matt Ruff fan!
I loved it, just as I loved his last novel Set This House In Order. I intend to read his previous books, The Fool On The Hill, and Sewer, Gas And Electric.

"Buy it, read it, memorise then destroy it. There are eyes everywhere" Christopher Moore

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