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Aug 13, 2015BWilsoned rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Humorous doesn't cover how funny this book is--I was laughing out loud as I did the dishes, spun wool, and walked to work. Yes, people looked at me askance, but I just smiled and continued with what I was doing. Charlie is a beta male, the narrator tells us, and throughout the book we are privy to a sporadic documentary of human beta male inner, and outer, workings. Fascinating as that is, it's the bit about him being death that kind of grabs center stage. He read his "Big Book of Death" late in the game because his teenage, Goth employee absconded with it and read it, hoping that SHE was death. His other employee, a former cop with a penchant for the easy "love" of internet sites, thinks Charlie is a serial killer, which makes sense considering all the deaths that happen after Charlie asks Ray for addresses and phone numbers via his cop contacts. Let me just say, though there's a considerable amount of swearing and some over-the-top (so to speak) sexual content, this book was a hoot to listen to while I worked or walked. Trying to figure out your role as a "death merchant", which sounds worse than it is, right after losing your wife and having to raise an infant, adds to the riotous mess that is Charlie Asher's life. Add in Minty Fresh, a 7-foot-tall black man who dresses in mint green; a sister who likes to borrow Charlie's secondhand but dapper suits; a former Buddhist nun with super powers who animates patchwork squirrel creatures; two Asian superpowers who take turns watching Sophie (Charlie's daughter, who has some interesting attributes herself), the Emperor of San Francisco, 2 awesome hell hounds with stronger than cast-iron stomachs, and three sewer harpies--well, what more could you ask for?