Repeat New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns to the mean streets of San Francisco in this outrageous follow-up to his madcap novel Noir.
To read local author Christopher Moore's latest novel, Razzmatazz, is to give yourself up to the loony mayhem of a Chandler-esque escapade through 1940s San Francisco...And I would gladly give myself up to the mayhem again...The novel is well worth the read...The language Moore uses contributes to the fun of this novel, but it’s truly the characters and the shifts between story lines that give the most life to the narrative...Almost all of the main characters take a stint at the wheel, layering in detail, whether that comes from young Uncle Ho, who talks to animals and hears the voice of the dragon in his head, or Tilly Stilton, Sammy’s main (and only) squeeze, who is known as the Cheese to everyone, but who after too many drinks often inner-monologues an alter ego named Stilton DeCheese, private eye: 'I was looking to accidentally on purpose run into a thin frail called Olivia Stoddard … and the drinks were going on expenses. I took the job'...All these voices and perspectives, whether DeCheese, dragon or Uncle Ho, sometimes feel only loosely connected, but the sum of it all dazzles, entertains and squeezes in more than a few laughs along the way...Razzmatazz is another success for Christopher Moore.
Razzmatazz is marked with the same sort of coarse charm that permeates all of Moore’s books...Sammy and his cohort are colorfully foul-mouthed and cheerfully unsavory; the circles they run in are the ones that your mother warned you about (or at least, she would’ve if you had been born yet)...Reluctant heroism doesn’t always click, but when said hero is someone like Sammy Two-Toes, well...it clicks...Razzmatazz is typical Moore, packed with humor and heart, all of it reflected through genre deconstruction and a fierce affection for its setting...There’s a chaos at play throughout – there’s a LOT going on – yet Moore handles it deftly, resulting in a book whose myriad fractured storylines ultimately come together in a delightfully droll denouement.
In this humorous romp, bestseller Moore returns to the 1947 San Francisco setting of Noir, where bartender and amateur problem-solver Sammy Tiffin is faced with several requests for assistance...Jimmy Vasco, proprietress of a lesbian bar, asks Sammy to find the killer targeting her community; Eddie Shu wants Sammy to recover a dragon statue for his Uncle Ho; and Mabel, 'the preeminent nookie bookie in Fog City,' needs help smuggling her girls out of town to a Christmas party...Moore, entirely in his element and with tongue firmly in cheek, has his characters speak in gumshoe-esque vernacular, while warning in an author’s note that 'the language and attitudes portrayed herein regarding race, culture, and gender are contemporary to that time and, sadly, all too real'...Indeed, punctuating all the spoofy amateur sleuthing are more serious depictions of the maltreatment of the Chinese and LGBTQ communities, adding some necessary gravitas...Moore’s fans and those who like their noir with a side of slapstick and the supernatural will enjoy.
