A DIRTY JOB

4.5 stars out of 5

Have I mentioned that I have a truly warped sense of humor? Nothing is sacred to me when it comes in the form of a joke - not life, nor religion, nor death. And trust me, not one of those three topics gets short shrift in this book (I'd give it 4.5 stars if that were possible).

Because I enjoy the dark side of funny, it stands to reason I love Christopher Moore's books. Back when I read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, I giggled so hard and so often that I had to move away from my usual reading spot lest I further annoy a husband who was trying his best to read a book of his own. This time, my intent was to read Moore's latest, Secondhand Souls; but a good friend and fellow Moore fan advised me to read this one first and I paid attention.

The whole thing begins as Charlie Asher is enjoying his life with a beautiful wife and infant daughter. But suddenly, everything goes to hell in a handbasket - somewhat literally. People begin to drop dead, and he "sees" people and things no one else does. Soon, he learns he's become a designated Death Merchant - a person charged with collecting the souls of the dying, keeping them away from the Forces of Darkness that threaten to take over the world so Charlie can transfer them to the bodies of other living folks. It's a dirty job, as his Death Merchant instruction book (and the  title of this book) say, but somebody's got to do it. Actually, Charlie is a natural for the job; as a Beta Male, he's described as leaning toward timidity and paranoia - both tendencies quite evident at least in the early parts of the book - but on the other hand, he'll "never be a bug splattered on the smoky windscreen of dull imagination."

The book follows Charlie as he tries to better understand and deal with his rather bizarre fate. Sometimes, he's called upon to explain his strange actions (not to mention his daughter Sophie's suddenly acquired pair of humongous black bodyguard dogs and his every-so-often sightings of shadowy "beings" that pop up from the San Francisco sewer system).  Like everything else, those explanations are served with a big dose of humor:

"So, from what you guys are saying, there are thousands of humans walking around without souls?" a lady friend asked.

"Millions, probably," Charlie replied.

"Maybe that explains the last election," was her retort.

Ah yes, definitely my kind of book.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (William Morrow, reprint edition, October 2009); 400 pp.

THE SERPENT OF VENICE: A NOVEL

4 stars out of 5

Bull bollocks! The first thing that came to my mind about halfway through this rollicking novel is that it would have been even more rollicking had I read (or re-read) William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice before I started. But it didn't bother me quite so much when I got to the end and read Moore's explanation; in fact, the book was inspired by The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe as well as Shakespeare's Othello: The Moor of Venice and the aforementioned Merchant. What's Moor (pun intended), Serpent is set in Medieval times, some 300 years before Shakespeare's writing.

It was a time when ladies who wanted to marry into wealth left their knickers at home in the drawers of their hope chests, shagging thy neighbor's wife was frowned upon only when you got caught, and less-than-manly men wore over-sized codpieces to attract knickerless ladies - much as we "girls" stuffed Kleenex into our bras in the 1950s (until, happily, a decade or so later we realized we didn't need bras at all).

At any rate, maybe reading Merchant would have helped a bit, but then again, maybe not so much. I still managed to chuckle out loud every now and then - just not quite as much as when I read another of Moore's books, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Not a fair comparison, perhaps, since Lamb is without doubt one of the top two laugh-out-loud books I've ever read (topped only by Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armor.

This one starts as three men in Venice - Antonio, Brabantio and Iago - lure rascal-fool Pocket to their lair for what was to be wine and a lusty woman (in this case, Brabantio's beautiful daughter, Portia). But alas, the wine was drugged, and Portia is nowhere around. Instead, the plan is to kill Pocket; and for a time, it appears they got away with it.

But no, Pocket manages to escape - with a little help from a creature from a black lagoon. Then, he sets out on a fool's course to set things right, accompanied through most of the trials, tribulations, travails and travels by Jessica, the daughter of Shylock. Other familiar names pop in and out, like Othello, his wife, Desdemona, Cordelia and a monkey named Jeff (well, maybe that one's not so familiar).  

All in all, Moore's written another winner - witty, clever, irreverent and just plain fun to read.

The Serpent of Venice: A Novel by Christopher Moore (HarperCollins Publishers, April 2014); 336 pp.