This book makes me even more sad that Douglas Adams is dead.
Like the first Dirk Gently book, it manages to balance a sense of complete chaos with a slight feeling of melancholy (just enough to stir something in you, without getting all mopey about it) and the usual Adams-ian wit. The plot — such as it is — centers around discarded Asgardian deities, old refrigerators and the absence of delivery pizza in the UK. But it’s about so much more.
There are wonderful little asides — like the one that blindsided me about three quarters through and actually made me sympathize with the plight of “the whales” (of “save the…” fame) for the first time. The characters are simultaneously stretched cartoonishly out of proportion, yet completely believable. And then there’s Mr. Gently, whose “holistic” methods are really little more than an excuse for the author to tie everything together with implausible coincidences, chalking them up to “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.” A cheap ploy it may be (like the Infinite Improbability Drive that came before it), but it works.
All in all, a great book — everything I look for in a good recreational read. I truly, sincerely wish there could be another.