Featured Book Friday! A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore Part 1

First impressions on A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

During the first chapter, I was waiting for the reaper to show up. I mean, if you read the synopsis, it tells you flat out that Charlie becomes Death. I figured it would be similar to the 1994 The Santa Clause with Tim Allen, where Santa dies and Tim Allen has to take over to be Santa. Except, instead of Santa dying, it’s the reaper, and Charlie becomes the new Death Helper. 





The irony is set up while the MC Charlie is terrified that something is going to happen to his newborn daughter and everyone around him is going crazy with his paranoia antics. The nurse yells at him that he is being way too insecure about something bad happening, and his wife tells him to go home because he’s worrying so much. Even I, the reader, feels like “Hey Charlie, calm it down.”  And I read the back cover, so I know someone’s going to die! And I’m still like, “Charlie, enough.” The reader almost thinks that his fear is unfounded, at least for the moment, until Charlie sees a CD in the car for his wife. He just HAS to go back into the hospital to give it to her. Okay, whatever. 

A Side Note: Who still listens to CDs? That’s what Spotify and YouTube are for. Does she not have a phone? (Yeah, I’m a Blizzard developer now.) Whatever, the author is older; I’ll forgive it. I know the CD is just a plot device to get the main character back into the hospital. As soon as Charlie sees a black man in a green suit in the hospital room with his wife, I’m like, “Yep, that’s the reaper.” The author tries to throw you off because we readers have a preconceived notion that the reapers wear black robes and carry a scythe. But it’s okay, we can see through it. 


Second Chapter:

The odd thing about the whole “Hey, I saw a black man in a green suit in the hospital room!” and everyone else is like, “No one else was there,” thing I was expecting to read was that the CD disappeared. Okay, I was not expecting the CD to vanish as well as the reaper. So that detail right there piqued my interest.

Otherwise, normal dealings with death things with emotions, funeral arrangements, and family members but all in an interesting way. The next plot device is that Charlie just has to find some cushions because they needed it for the Jewish funeral traditions. Really? They don’t have any cushions? What about couch cushions? Again, just an excuse to move the plot along. So he goes into the thrift shop he just happens to own, and when he gets there, he sees some items that glowed red in the darkness. Intriguing! Somehow, these items have to relate to death, but I’m not sure how yet. Maybe that CD he had also glowed red but didn’t see it in normal lighting. Well, Charlie freaks out about the glowing red things and then gets his sister to go into the shop to retrieve cushions. To the author’s credit, main character’s sister does ask about just using couch cushions. I feel justified. 

Anyway, the third person viewpoint switches on his sister Jane. And what do you know, it’s the reaper guy peering in the window. I mean, it’s just this really tall black guy, who is wearing a yellow suit, maybe light green, and the sister thinks it’s just someone who wants to pawn something at the shop. The interesting thing is that reaper is sending Charlie something in the mail. I bet it’s the CD.

General Impressions: 

It’s very entertaining. It is an odd combination of humor and death. Death isn’t funny but somehow the balance between the two works really well. I wonder how many edits and revisions it took to get that balance just right. I’m going to guess A LOT.

I look forward to reading more. I will split this review into two parts. I like to really focus on the first few chapters. Those are so crucial to not only setting up the story, characters, setting, plot, everything, but also needs to get the reader interested and to keep reading.