The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently Series #2) » (Reissue)

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was the much-loved author of the Hitchhiker's Guides, all of which have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

When a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk's latest--and late-- client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record "Hot Potato"? Amid the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the trauma of a very dirty refrigerator, super-sleuth Dirk Gently will once again solve the mysteries of the universe...

Publishers Weekly

``The British author of the Hitchhiker trilogy and other immensely popular lunacies, Adams permits no whiff of common sense to spoil his new novel, which combines fantasy, hilarity and creeping horrors,'' remarked PW . Here, sleuth Dirk Gently investigates a lawyer and an advertiser who possess the soul of the god Odin. ``The plot's ramifications are marvelous, bloody and irresistible.'' (Jan.)

This production includes two of Adams's Dirk Gently novels. Dirk is one of the odder creations in detective fiction, although he isn't odd by the standards of his creator, who also wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Dirk usually spends his time investigating odd coincidences and looking for lost cats; he believes in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things." This philosophy leads him to search for lost London cats on Bahamian beaches, much to the dismay of his clients, who get billed for his travel expenses. The plot in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency deals with an Electric Monk, an unhappy ghost, a lost alien who needs a body to inhabit, a time-traveling Cambridge professor, a couch stuck in a stairwell, and an old university buddy, Richard MacDuff, who is suspected of the murder of his boss, computer company millionaire Gordon Way, the unhappy ghost who doesn't know how to be dead. All of these elements are tied together into a peculiar and amusing tale.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul begins when Dirk oversleeps and misses an appointment with a client, who is found in his locked study, decapitated. The police are perfectly willing to ignore some very odd forensic evidence and declare the death a suicide. Dirk, driven by guilt and a fear of going back to his home (his refrigerator has started lurking in a very ominous way), decides to find out what the green-eyed, 7' horned creature that had been threatening his client knows about the so-called suicide. All he has to do is find the suspect. Once again, under Adams's existential guidance, it all connects in the end, whether one believes it or not.

The author does an excellent job narrating his ownwork, for only he could probably read it aloud without giggling or going mad.