Robert Fleming Rankin

Quirky? Check.
Anthropomorphic toys? You betcha! And drunk to boot.
Murder most foul? Most definitely.
Chocolate? Rabbit shaped.

I really didn't know what to expect with this book, and as soon as I read the first chapter with the cannibalistic farmer with animals named after deadly diseases, I was hooked.

There are many young boys heading to the big city to find their fortune in literature. Very few of them discover that the city is inhabited entirely by toys, however, and stumble across a serial show more killer's plot to take out Toy City's old rich, the nursery rhyme characters.

Loved it.

Though the book never answered a question I had which was: "Was Humpty Dumpty really an egg?" show less

Detective Eddie Bear (a stuffed toy) chases evil space chickens through 1950s Hollywood with the help of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (who's actually a ninja)...oh, and Marilyn Monroe too. It's all to solve a series of toy murders which is really the plot of a fast food chain seeking world domination. Yep, my type of book!

And Jonny shone the torch before him and found that little hatchway affair, switched off the torch and removed the hatchway affair. The hatchway affair lay behind a portrait of Sir Henry Crawford, many times great-granddaddy of the recently deceased James. This portrait hung over the fireplace in Princess Amelia's sitting room. And the little hatchway removed the eyes from the portrait, to be replaced by the eyes of Jonny Hooker. Just like in those old-fashioned movies, which sometimes show more starred Bob Hope. And didn't you always want to live in a house with a secret passage and a big portrait with the removable eyes that you could peer from behind, all secretive-like?
You didn't? Well, shame upon you.
Jonny Hooker always had, and he was loving this.

In this book is much concerning Robert Johnson, who met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul in return for becoming the world's greatest guitarist, and also much concerning the Air Loom Gang and their influencing machine. But mainly it is the story of Jonny Hooker (guitarist in a local rock band, escaped mental patient , suspected murderer and fake park ranger) and the trouble he gets into when he decides to enter a competition to solve the Da-Da-De-Da-Da code.

The story is set in Brentford, in and around Gunnersbury Park, a local authority run public park that was once home to the Rothschilds, and the lady in the straw hat makes an appearance, along with Jonny's invisible friend Mr. Giggles, two park rangers called Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey (not that Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey), a police constable with a rocket launcher, and a very odd pub landlord.

One of Robert Rankin's best in my opinion.

'I've got Gunnersbury Park up on the screen now and, yep, looks clear of people, just some little heat signatures. Here, ah, yes. I can zoom in. Squirrels. Squirrels in the trees. How cool is this?'
Constable Rogers agreed that it was cool.
After all, squirrels are cool.
Everyone knows that.
They're not just rats with good PR. show less

'And the lights upon the allotment,' said Soap, 'what would you take those to be?'
'The work of the council,' said Omally firmly, 'another plot to confound honest golfers.'
Soap burst into a paroxysm of laughter. Tears rolled down his pale cheeks and he clutched at his stomach.
'Come now,' said Pooley, 'it is no laughing matter, these lads have it in for us.'
'Have it in for you?' gasped Soap between convulsions. 'You witness a test run of laser-operated gravitational landing beams, the show more product of a technology beyond comprehension, and you put it down to the work of Brentford Council?'
'If you will pardon me,' said Pooley, somewhat offended, 'If it is the product of a technology beyond comprehension I hardly feel that I can be blamed for finding it so.'
'Quite', said Omalley.

1) The Antipope
2) The Brentford Triangle
3) East of Ealing
4) The Sprouts of Wrath
5) The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

I decided that I should try to fit in some re-reads of old favourites over the next few months, and I started with The Brentford Trilogy since I've got two linked books on my TBR shelf. I liked book 1 of this series, but it was book 2 that got me hooked. On the surface Brentford may appear to be a normal West London suburb, but it's actually a centre of weirdness and a magnet for the uncanny. So it's lucky that the mysterious Professor Slocombe, and local layabouts Pooley and Omalley are ready to tackle evil whenever it rears its head, with the help of the inventive genius Norman Hartnel, hollow-earther Soap Distant and the other regulars of The Flying Swan pub. show less