READING REVIEWS
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
The insanity of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the intrigue of an Agatha Christie Novel
Reviewed by Benedict Williams
I watched the BBC series of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and found it hilarious. Therefore, I had high hopes for the literary version.
Although it started off at a pace that would cause some to put the book down and remember it as ‘the book I could never get into’, it then leads you to question considerably, after the mysterious death of a well-known businessman, what was going on. Previously, we had been introduced to an ‘Electric Monk’, a man that had an ‘impossible’ sofa, and a poet, which none of these seemed to link to the story in any way.
However, a detective renowned in the police force as a frustrating amateur detective who gets in the way (remind you of any famous detective yet?) works with the idea of the case being holistic and is characterized by the belief that the parts of something are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.
Dirk Gently, the said detective, gets involved mostly by unusual and pressurising means which frustrates Richard MacDuff who also gets involved in all these issues purely by mistake. They work together to solve the case and create a hugely funny plot that works very well in tying everything together (somehow!)
Not only do I recommend this book, but the BBC series (the English one with Stephen Mangan).
Dirk Gently’s Hollistic Detective Agency’ is available to borrow from the Library