Matt Ruff – Bad Monkeys

115. Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff (2007)

Length: 230 pages

Genre: Thriller; Humor

Started: 23 November 2007
Finished: 23 November 2007

Summary: Jane Charlotte is in the “nut wing” of a Las Vegas jail after committing murder and then revealing to the police that she is a member of a top-secret organization committed to stopping evil. She’s in the department that deals with eradicating truly evil people, or “Bad Monkeys”. As she tells her tale to a doctor, it becomes less and less clear what’s truth and what’s fiction, whether she’s sane or crazy, or if there’s something else going on entirely.

Review: A departure from Ruff’s previous work, both in topic and (unfortunately) in how much I enjoyed it. There’s a level of conspiracy-theory-secret-society-type clever wackiness that smacks of Christopher Moore (indeed, his recommendation is quoted on the cover), and I enjoyed that part of things. There were some interesting ideas about good and evil, although nothing particularly original or profound. It was also an extremely quick and easy read. However, that meant that the turns and twists and double-crosses came too quickly and abruptly, and by the end it just wasn’t really worth it to try to keep up. It might benefit from a second read, now that I know the ending, but although it wasn’t unenjoyable, it also didn’t inspire me to want to read it again. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Quick enough that I don’t regret the time I spent reading it, but I also doubt I’ll be returning to it any time soon.

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