A Dirty Job

Christopher Moore has been favorably compared over the past decade to Brit comedy sci-fi writers Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. But his voice is uniquely American and more grounded to an askew eye winking at the horror genre, with an absurd existential playfulness gleaning almost effortlessly more laughs-out-loud per page than the Halloween issue of The Onion. After Beta male Charlie Asher glimpses an outrageously clad specter—an imposingly tall black man clad all in mint green—lurking about the maternity ward, he learns that he has lost his wife soon after gaining a daughter. Worse news follows bad as random objects begin to glow in his San Francisco thrift store, and even more random strangers begin to die upon meeting him. Turns out (he is informed by the aforementioned Minty Green) Asher is the newest member of The Death Merchants, outsourced minions to Death himself … and life, the universe and everything depends on him doing it right. With such titles as Practical Demonkeeping and Blood Sucking Fiends already on shelves, A Dirty Job is a worthy addition to Moore’s darkly giddy oeuvre.