Man, I haven’t been sucked into a book this deep in ages. I read 60 some pages last night after I put down The Gender Divide. Or rather, early this morning before I crashed. Finished the whole thing in less than 24 hours. It’s really good.
Except the ending. Too many twists at the end. It’s decent, but any time there are more than a bazillion swerves, I get a little lost. What do you mean swerve
, Phil? Well, let’s do the synopsis…
Jane Charlotte is charged with murder. But she’s claiming that she’s really a member of a secret organization that fights evil. Her particular department is the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons. Short name, Bad Monkeys. As in they snuff the bad monkeys. Like child molesters who won’t get caught. She can pick up a phone and talk to the logistics people at any time. Except when people not in the know are watching. In other words, she seems to be nuts, so they put Jane Charlotte in the psych ward.
The book is Jane Charlotte telling her history to the psychiatrist. Her upbringing. Her recruitment. Etc. It’s all first person. And it’s a rather fanciful tale that is either great fantasy or she is really really nuts.
Anyway, her story gets wilder and wilder toward the end, which was pretty good actually. It’s just the swerves that lost me.
I have Ruff’s Set This House In Order, so I should probably grab that off the shelf and read it.
Oh, and am I the only person who thought this might be inspired by 12 Monkeys? Psych patient claiming to be from a secret organization that is manipulating things? Plus there’s the whole monkey
motif. I haven’t scoured the internet to see if this thought is just me. Quite a bit different otherwise, of course.
For now, I am tagging this as a fantasy. It doesn’t really fit any genre though.
Title: Bad monkeys
Author: Matt Ruff
Imprint / publisher: HarperCollins
Format: Paperback? (this has a plastic cover)
Length: 227 p.
Publication date: July 2007
ISBN-10: 0-06-124041-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-124041-6
Subject: Secret societies — Fiction
Subject: Vigilantes — Fiction
Subject: Psychological fiction
LC classification: PS3568.U3615B33 2007
