The summary on the back of Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection is longer than the average blurb. This is because this is a complex story that is difficult to summarize in a way that makes it sound as interesting and unique as it really is. Here's my attempt --

Charles Unwin works in a detective agency that has a unique hierarchy of clerks, detectives and watchers -- each assigned into a crime-solving trio and yet never meeting in person. All communication is passed between the team members by messenger. One day, Unwin is approached by a detective who tells him that he has been promoted to detective and hands him a book, The Manual of Detection. He knows that his detective, Travis Sivart, has recently gone missing and so as his first (and hopefully last) task of detection, he decides to find Sivart (a man he has never seen) so that Unwin can return to his clerking job. In the course of his task, he meets many people -- some helpful, some harmful and some dead.

The most perilous thing in my latest R.I.P. Challenge read is the femme fatale -- well, that and the separated conjoined twins who like to kill people. This story has a lot in common with old hard-boiled detective novels but it's set in a world of rogue circus folk, mind control and dream stealing. There are many fascinating (though somewhat one-dimensional) characters and the story is a real page-turner. This book has a complexity that makes it interesting but also a simplicity that makes it compelling.

http://webereading.com/2009/10/lest-d... ( )

http://writatlarge.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

"Berry expertly weaves together these strands of plot (plus a few others) with an assurance that belies his first-time novelist status. His world is that of the classic noirs of the 1950s, alongside a vision of a gothic city (caught in a perpetual rainstorm) straight out of Terry Gilliam's visionary film Brazil. When one character comments to the deceptively competent Unwin, "I do know a thing or two about detectives, Mr. Unwin. I know that with a few words you could have won my heart. But you're one of the noble ones, aren't you?" you can feel the ghosts of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler urging Berry on."

Read the rest of the review here. ( )

This strange book wanders in and out of dreams, a clerk, now detective, searching for answers. I stopped halfway through; lost interest in the strangeness. ( )

I received the audio version of this novel from the Early Reviewers program and while audio books aren't really my thing, I have to say that this was an exception. The narration was excellent, the story was engrossing and unusual enough to keep me involved the whole way through. Charles Unwin's makes an excellent "reluctant hero" who I found myself rooting for from start to finish. ( )