This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us by Edgar Cantero

 

I dunno. On the one hand there are some interesting ideas in this novel, and Cantero's prose sparkles with wit and joy. On the other hand, there are probably enough parodies of hard-boiled detective stories (Jean Kerr wrote one in the 1950s, you can find it in Please Don't Eat the Daisies) and I don't think the Kimreans are interesting enough characters, or the story here an interesting enough story, to really be the kind of witty inversion/subversion Cantero seems to intend--the kind that also serves as an example of the kind of story it's parodying. Nothing in the novel really holds together, and it persistently seemed to be fighting my ability to suspend disbelief. I had the thought that maybe this would have been better served by some sort of visual medium--movie or comic/graphic novel--since I know Cantero works in at least comics, and much of the novel seems to want to carry the story on the strength of imagery; that might just be a stray thought, though.