There haven't been too many books that I wanted to throw in a corner from frustration never to be picked up again. But Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff managed to reach this (in)tolerance level of mine all right, and it did so on its 70-something page, at about the third (!) of the novel.

The whole reading experience started out quite well and hopeful though, with an intriguing (although not too original) story.

White room: white walls, white floor, white table, white clothes, white white. We are supposedly in a psychiatric ward of a prison with the protagonist and her doctor, Richard Vale, who is conducting an interrogation of Jane Charlotte. She has been arrested for killing a certain Mr. Dixon. We learn right away that Charlotte is a member of a department (called Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, in other words: Bad Monkeys) of a quasi secret organization that fights evil. Dixon's murder - according to Jane - was a mistake as he was actually not a bad guy.

And so starts this unbelievably fast, unbelievably insane journey into the... nowhere.

As I mentioned, at around the 70th page I started to feel uneasy about the novel - started to be afraid that all these gimmicks of Ruff's writing are just cover-ups for the unbearable nothingness of its existence. And boy was I right. A lot of critiques pointed out the evident "borrowings" from a huge amount of great writers of the genre, but sadly enough the protagonist also bears similarities with Evanovich's primitive Stephanie Plum (to whom I was introduced a couple of weeks ago so that I should not pick up another of her books again in my whole life). Consequently, I can't even tell that Ruff's resources were at least first-class literary persons.

One of the main (and extremely frustrating) gimmicks of Ruff is that he tries to sell the stuff as a smart novel with deep, hidden philosophical meaning(s). Which, let me tell you honestly, could have been there: not the neverending "what is good, what is evil" problem (let's face it: it is a bit too big and a bit too general bite for even a much more knowledgeable person), but there is a dialogue-crumb towards the end between the bad Jane and the good Jane about the perception of reality - and this could have been a great concept for the novel indeed (starting somewhere around Berkely - esse est percipi - and Hume).

What we left with though, is a totally pointless, pretentious... nothing. Not worth a minute of our precious reading time. ( )

Once I picked this book up, I couldn't put it back down. The story revolves around Jane Charlotte, who has just been charged with murder and is being interviewed in prison by a psychiatrist. She claims to work for a secret society that is erradicating evil from the world by killing "bad monkeys"--people who are considered evil to the point of being irredeemable. But is she telling the truth? The choice of such a questionably reliable narrator sets this novel apart from other science fiction thrillers on the market and keeps the reader guessing throughout the book. In addition, the sometimes quite likable "bad monkeys" raise the question of what defines evil and when is someone truly beyond the point of redemption. A page turner that encourages deep thought is a rare thing and I can't wait to read more from Matt Ruff. ( )

This one reminded me a lot of Christopher Moore books. A fact I guess other people must have noticed since they have a quote from Moore on the cover. Slightly less crazy characters but still over the top plot. I like this style of book but it just does not capture me the way some inferior books do just because I happen to like characters I can relate to better. In a way the writing style of both Moore and Ruff reminds me of the short stories I read for a Latin American literature class. The descriptions are amazing, the stories interesting, but I just can't actually feel anything for the characters because they are too removed from me. Of course these books were way funnier than that class. ( )

first line: "It's a room an uninspired playwright might conjure while staring at a blank page: White walls. White ceiling. White floor."

This is a not-quite-dystopian novel of psychological suspense, requiring readers to parse out truth from lies and good from evil. It's a quick, gripping read, and I can easily imagine a movie adaptation. ( )

A really fun and engrossing read! Plan to read the whole book in one sitting. The Organization is the most bad-ass super-secret organization ever conceived.

By the end, there might have been a few too many plot twists...

Addictive. Unpredictable. All the things a monkey tale should be.

Jane Charlotte is in jail on murder charges, specifically in the psychiatric ward. Why? Well, her claim that she is a member of the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, a.k.a. “Bad Monkeys,” is a good start. Prison psychologist Dr. Vale listens to her personal history, starting with her recruitment into the secret organization at the age of fourteen, after her discovery that the janitor at her school was the Angel of Death. The Bad Monkeys were already on the case, but she didn’t find that out until it was almost too late.

American philosopher and thinker Loren Eiseley once said,“I am not nearly so interested in what monkey man was derived from as I am in what kind of monkey he is to become.” So too the reader swings back and forth as they hear Jane’s tale. Is she herself a good monkey, or a bad monkey?

Her story unfolds in a way that will seem eerily familiar to fans of the underground classic Illuminatus Trilogy. It’s a quick read, especially since you won’t want to put it down. ( )

Omnes mundum facimus
(We all make the World)

Omnes mundum facimus is a central belief of the branch of a secret crime-fighting organization known as the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons (nickname: Bad Monkeys). The Bad Monkeys department works alongside other branches of the organization such as the Department for Optimal Utilization of Resources and Personnel (nickname: Cost-Benefits) and the Department of Ubiquitous Intermittent Surveillance (nickname: Panopticon) to expunge evil from the world by whatever means necessary.

Bad Monkeys kicks off with Jane Charlotte, a woman claiming to be a Bad Monkeys operative, narrating her story from within the walls of the psychiatric ward of the Las Vegas Clark County Detention Center. Dr. Vale enters “the nut wing” to interview/interrogate her, ostensibly to determine her sanity. Jane obligingly recounts for him all of her experiences leading up to her present position in the nut wing (in addition to possible insanity, she’s being held for murder).

Jane tells Dr. Vale that her actions with the Bad Monkeys organization have all been for the express purpose of ridding the world of evil. As Bad Monkeys personnel, she has the authority and the intel to eliminate “bad monkeys” who have evaded society’s usual modes of justice.

Jane’s conversation with Dr. Vale shifts back and forth between present day dialogue and flashbacks of Jane’s J.D. (juvenile delinquent) youth. Jane details her life pre-Bad Monkeys as well as her experiences after joining the Bad Monkeys.

As Dr. Vale listens to Jane’s story, he frequently requests clarification and points out incongruities. While Jane always has a ready answer, readers are left to wonder about the veracity of Jane’s tale and about the very existence of the Bad Monkeys organization.

Organization tools such as the N.C. (natural causes) gun nudge the book over into the realm of science fiction, but there’s a great deal of psychological drama and suspense here as well. In a book replete with plot twists and page turning events, just who’s a bad monkey and who’s not Ruff leaves up to debate until the book’s final pages.

Bad Monkeys is an adult book that may well also enthrall many young adults. For those looking for more, there’s always Ruff’s other works and/or the Bad Monkeys super secret website to explore (shhhh…). Or you could try choosing a book from one of the following booklists:

Overbooked: Psychological Suspense Crime Fiction Booklist This list contains “Darkly atmospheric stories, disturbing mind games, engrossing and compelling characters - stories that generate a sense of unease . . .” which seems to aptly match up with the ambience of Bad Monkeys.

Hennepin County Library: A Child’s Look into an Adult World: Quirky Psychological Fiction “This list is made up of books that deal with heavy subjects but are narrated by children, offering a somewhat innocent look at the highs and lows of modern life. If you appreciate a good mystery told from a psychologically unique perspective, some of these books are absolute winners!” (Note: the books on this list are Bad Monkeys read alikes in the sense that they contain psychological drama, but, by and large, they don’t have as much emphasis on the crime and/or suspense aspect). ( )

Just not bad enough.

It seemed to me that after an ok start with the interrogation part, it is just not enough of anything.

Not funny enough, not paranoid enough, not action enough, not weird enough.

Also very saggy and dull in the middle with the whole sex with jailbait boys and drugs part.

The is she a crazy one or a weird science fiction super agent character was pretty unmemorable.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/06/bad-monkeys-matt-ruff.html ( )

This book is amazing! Matt Ruff = Great Author! The beginning was great, I was hooked right away. The ending just about blew my mind! I could not stop thinking about this book for weeks after I read it. ( )

I liked the book. I was more annoyed with the awkward binding of the book. It made it difficult to read.

Overall though, NC guns, killer clowns...a fun read ( )

Not bad. I got extremely annoyed with the fact that the character KEPT switching sides near the end (I get it! We don't know if she's good or bad, and she doesn't either!). Probably because I read it too quickly, but some punch is lost because the switches are too frequent. I did like the tone and most of the writing, too, and the idea of an NC gun is pretty fun. ( )

An excellent thrill ride, with some nice twists. It even twists your perception of what is and isn't a cliché. Fast, enjoyable and begging to be turned into a film. ( )

Great book! My first of Matt Ruff's but certainly not my last. Intriguing, twisty, suspenseful and yet humorous, science fiction yes but written as if it were real. Very believable in its content, I didn't like the ending but I loved how the story line took me there and dropped me off the cliff as it were. Very profound in its detailed red herring approach. Can not say enough. Read it! ( )

The best way I can describe this book is that it was dark, comic, fantastical and ludicrous. I was drawn into the plot and will admit to wanting to see how it all came out, but it wasn't a piece of literature I would particularly recommend. ( )

if you like Vernon God Little; Speed Queen

3.09 ( )

http://raindogthoughts.wordpress.com/... ( )

The structure of Bad Monkeys is similar to The Usual Suspects. It is told as a long interview with Jane Charlotte, a thirtysomething woman being held in a psychiatric ward on a murder charge. Her story about how she came to commit the crime is a far-fetched, tin-foil-hat yarn, but it is supported by some documentary evidence gathered by the psychologist interviewing her. One of the chief pleasures of the book is the constant challenge to the reader: just how much do we want to trust our narrator?

I completely enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. It's blindingly fast-paced, but offers substance rarely found in thrillers. An example from early in the book: the psychologist challenges Jane on an apparent gap in her story. Jane replies that the conflict is a "Nod problem." This is a reference to the land of Nod, the place Cain goes after he's banished for killing Able. The problem is that Cain and Able are the sons of Adam and Eve-- there shouldn't have been any other people around to live in the land of Nod. Jane offers the Nod problem as an example of the subjectivity of epistemic judgments: if you already believe the bible is true, you take the Nod problem as a mystery that has yet to be solved. If you believe the bible is false, you take the Nod problem as evidence of its falsity. Says Jane to her shrink: "It's the same with this. Don't pretend this is some kind of objective inquiry for you. You've already decided what you believe. All you're doing now is looking for a club to beat me with until I agree to see things your way."

Unfortunately, things fall apart toward the end. The fundamental problem is that Ruff all but abandons the intimate, thoughtful threads that run through most of the novel. The last quarter is devoted to a hail of plot twists and choreographed action that forces him into an approach that reads like a novelization of a screenplay that hasn't been written. There are even Matrix-like special effects.

Despite the dud ending, Bad Monkeys is a good read. It's thought-provoking, exciting, and funny. ( )

This book is told as a narrative by a woman named Jane Charlotte currently in detention, to a psychiatrist who is evaluating her over a period of visits. The woman regales her interviewer about how she was recruited as an adult in San Francisco by a secret organization devoted to assassinating sexual predators and mass murderers. As the story progresses of this almost destitute woman getting by on minimum wage jobs, there is increasing mention of technologies that probably don't exist, events that couldn't have likely happened in our space-time continuum, leading to the reader wondering about the sanity of the main character or whether this is a science fiction story set (way) in the future. As the story progresses, more and more mention is made of Jane's youth and early adulthood. These earlier mysterious tumultuous periods are less interesting to the reader as the exciting thriller that's happening in present day, and as her engagement with the secret organization revolves more and more around understanding what Jane is 'made of' and her earlier times, the story drags. The plot moves to Las Vegas and starts to move quickly at a thriller-like pace. While the story could progress nicely on its own when not dealing with historic sturm un drang of Jane, the author resorts to adding more and more mention of new secret organizations, technologies, and more, constantly roiling the text so that no expectations can be made about the real-time events in the story. All in all, a wonderful plot line and fresh approach to the narrative, the author injures the novel in places by over-making his point--sometimes less is more. ( )

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder; she claims to be operating for an organization that fights evil, in its Bad Monkeys division. She reviews her history with a prison psychiatrist.

Jane is an interesting character, the only real person in the book. Everyone else, except possibly her little brother, exists just to interact with her and set her problems to solve. The depiction of the organization for which she claims to work is both hilarious and fascinating; they have means of observing all of us, and of fighting, that are kinda scary and kinda neat.

The style of the book is breezy, if occasionally a bit clunky, and doesn't detract much from the quick progression of the story. The book promises us a lot of uncertainty but instead end up telling us more than this reader wanted to be told.

Overall, a quick, quirky, mostly fun read that left me thinking of cool things that the author could have done to make it wonderful. ( )

I’m glad Matt Ruff didn’t fall into the superhero trap when writing Bad Monkeys. Superheroes and their respective movies are annoyingly everywhere these days, and it’s getting really boring. Instead, Ruff delves into the more interesting realm of secret organizations and the psychologically jarring surveillance they use to either maintain or take control. Real people using gritty manipulation to get what they want, without the super dooper special effects.

Without giving away the details, we are introduced to Jane Charlotte and her situation. She’s just been detained by the authorities, and we subsequently learn about her seemingly aimless life, culminating in an active career inside an organization, THE organization, purposed to find and eliminate those in civilized society deemed “bad monkeys”. From the hazy fog of San Francisco to the deserts and aching lights of Las Vegas, we are told a twisting, bending story in which we are constantly asking ourselves whether we have the whole story. Mayhem, scary clowns, mind alterations and machinations…it’s all here.

Everything in Bad Monkeys is written with color: the characters, the action, the intrigue and the manipulation. It’s not exclusively a work of sci-fi, though there are definite moments where reality and belief are playing ping-pong in dreamlike suspension. But the novel is as Orwellian as it is weird and that’s slightly disconcerting in a good way. Surveillance is a major theme, and its parameters are absurdly carried out to its obvious conclusions; the MO is called “Eyes Only”, and while one may consider the details a bit too fantastical, know that bionic eyes apparently are being tested as I write. In any case, Bad Monkeys is an entertaining, creepy, puzzling, and fast read that’ll keep you thinking. ( )

It's dangerous for an author to write convincingly about a city that he does not live in. The blurb on the back of the book says that Mr. Ruff lives in Seattle. Much of the novel is set in San Francisco, and it is fairly obvious that he has not spent a lot of time there. In one section, it is noted that the fog had blown in "off the bay". If you live anywhere near San Francisco, you would know that the fog always comes from the Pacific Ocean to the west, rather than SF Bay to the east. In another section, a character's "house on the bay" is mentioned. There are, to my knowledge, no houses in San Francisco "on the bay", with the possible exception of the houseboats on Islais Creek near AT&T Park. These are nitpicky points, but I get annoyed when a novel doesn't represent an actual place accurately. ( )

Jane is on trial for murder and her defense is that she’s an operative for an organization so secret, and so covert that no one can or will corroborate her story. The prison psychologist is trying to determine her sanity as she describes otherworldly weapons and technology. Science fiction and thriller fans should enjoy this one. ---CKL

Jane Charlotte is in trouble. She’s been arrested for a murder that she committed as it was authorized by Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, otherwise known as “Bad Monkeys.” Bad Monkeys are part of a much larger covert organization. As a Bad Monkey, Jane Charlotte had the responsibility to eradicate evil in American society. The Bad Monkeys did what the government couldn’t or wouldn’t. Bad Monkeys tells Jane Charlotte’s story through her discussions with her court appointed psychiatrist. As he questions her in an attempt to determine whether she is fit to stand trial, he gets into her story, which is reminiscent of “The Matrix,” and just as compelling almost all the way through to the end.

This novel was much more science fiction than I normally read. There are some neat gadgets and special powers, such as the gun that can give someone a fatal heart attack or brain aneurysm when you shoot them, educational classes that took place during sleep, cameras that were everywhere and recording everything that you were doing for playback at any time, and some wicked mind altering drugs that allow the characters to move and react exceptionally fast. Still, the fact that this novel was science fiction didn’t occur to me until nearly the end because it’s all housed within Jane Charlotte, the most deliciously unreliable narrator I’ve come across in a long time. She is so unreliable that when aspects of her story are called on the carpet by her psychiatrist, she brushes them off using one of the oldest of Biblical stories: Cain and Abel. After killing his brother, Cain was banished from his family to live with those in the land of Nod. Given that his parents were Adam and Eve and were said to be the first people on the earth, what was Nod and who lived there? Those from the Judeo-Christian tradition accept that story on faith, despite the obvious hole in the plot. So, when Jane Charlotte’s story runs into a wall with her story, the wall is simply just another “Nod problem.” She believes it and expects her audience to as well, despite its improbability. To me, this was pure genius.

Bad Monkeys hooked me from the very beginning and, as always, I love going along for the ride with unreliable narrators. I only wish that it ended as her story did in Las Vegas. Instead, what could have been an ending that would have kept me pondering whether Jane Charlotte was insane, a supreme and able liar, or a woman caught between the society and a covert operation that enabled society to run despite itself was resolved in a dirty, messy bow. I suppose one could argue that there are still multiple ways to read the ending, but none of them are nearly as satisfying as what each reader could imagine for themselves.

Although the ending left a bad taste in my mouth, I loved Jane Charlotte and the story of her life. I enjoyed that she secretly could not get enough of straight laced Nancy Drew but turn on anyone when it suited her. Because there was a slight little bit of conscious to her, I was squirming along with her when the least savory scenes from her life with the “Pet Boys” were displayed on the big screen in front of her. She couldn’t leave. She was forced to confront her ugliest self. Those scenese reminded me of how uncomfortable it is to watch Chris Hansen walk out and confront child molestors on Dateline NBC’s “To Catch A Predator.” She got herself into that situation, but I just couldn’t help wanting to rescue her.

While in the Bad Monkeys, Jane Charlotte helped those her organization determined were beyond the hope of redemption by a heart attack or anuerysm delivered from her gun. This novel raises interesting questions about living in a civilized society: Who has the right to judge whether another human being is suitable to remain in society? If the government can’t or won’t, should someone else to up the gun and dole out rogue justice? What do we really know about the motivations groups and individuals like that? What should happen with Jane Charlotte? I guess the answer to all of those questions depends upon whether you are a Nancy Drew, a Bad Monkey or a bad monkey.

http://literatehousewife.wordpress.co... ( )

Paranoia’s real.

Somebody always watches

good and bad alike. ( )