No Hot Potato! (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams)

Member Name: FairyWBO

Product:	The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
Date:	10/11/03 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes me laugh, Easy to read

Disadvantages: No more after this one

For a long time now I have been meaning to get myself a Dirk Gently book... as a long time fan of Douglas Adams I couldn't understand how these had slipped me by, so when I saw this sitting on the 40p shelf in a local charity shop I snatched it up!

Having grown up with Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) in both TV and book format (missed out on the radio show) and generally being impressed with Adams in general.... I mean this man worked on Dr Who, invented the best name in the universe ever for a character (Slartibartfast) and was generally a normal bloke with a wicked sense of humour! I knew I was in for a treat. So I settled down to read a bit of my new (old) book and ended up not being able to put it down.

This is the second (and sadly final) Dirk Gently novel, although he was working on a third before he passed away, part of which can be read in Salmon of a Doubt.

Having not read the first I was a bit worried that I wouldn?t get into this as many tales seem to be lacking if you don't have the ground work laid down in first novels, but this was not the case! Maybe a few bits would have been hilarious rather than just funny if I had read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency first, but I didn't feel I had lost out on much by coming to this book as a DG novice (well apart from the chapter in the Salmon of Doubt book that is).

The plot
********

I really don't want to tell you any of it, as it was a wonderful experience reading this without having a clue what it was about, I didn't even read the preamble on the dust jacket (yes for my 40p I managed to get the hardback version), but I suppose I better tell you or you'll get the hump with me. But if you don't want to know look away now :oP

Kate Schechter is waiting to check in at the airport to go on a trip to Norway that she doesn't really want to go on, when the check in desk explodes. She wakes up in hospital and so
on finds the rather large man that was also at the check out and a cocoa cola machine are also in the hospital. Being inquisitive as to what was going on (or just plain nosey), she finds her way to an institute type health care home that is very posh indeed.. Fresh linen sheets everyday!

Dirk is working on a case, but arrives at his first appointment with his client a bit late and finds that the client is very late... late as in the late Dent Arthur Dent kind of way! Oh dear I slipped into H2G2 mode already! Stop that! That's better :o)

After discovering a contract in the dead clients toilet, hearing the song Hot Potato over and over again, and meeting the strange boy in the loft, he also finds himself at the same health care home as Kate but following different leads and ends up bumping into Kate's car while he is following her back towards London as he works on the theory that if you follow the person in front eventually you will get home, as long as they know where they are going.

Now our two main characters have met they soon part again to do their own thing... but it all comes together in the end.

There are Vikings, Birds of Prey, tramps and a rather nasty fridge in this story! I really don't want to tell you more, as it would spoil the enjoyment. But just imagine what you would do if you were a Norse God that has been forgotten for the last few centuries, but were still eternal!


Overall
*******

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone that likes a giggle or a good guffaw every now and then.

The characters are well described, and it flows seamlessly along which makes it so hard to put down.

Don't expect space ships and two headed aliens though as this isn't sci-fi, and has nothing to do with Ford Prefect. There is a passing Ford Orion though, when they have their crash :oP

This was written in the days before Pizza home deliv
ery, so some bits may seem a bit dated, no more will I say on the subject, as try as I might to give more away I just can't!


This is basically a brilliant comedy with a hint of dectective.. What else would you expect from Adams! Read it and enjoy... I certainly did :o)

I am off to find Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency in hardback now !

Happy Reading
Sarah :o)

P.S. I know that Dirk Gently is probably supposed to look completely different to how I see him in my head but to me he is Douglas Adams in Dr Who's clothes, Tom Baker Who that is!

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