Specify Books During The Manual of Detection
Original Title: | The Manual of Detection |
ISBN: | 1594202117 (ISBN13: 9781594202117) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Nominee (2010), Hammett Prize (2009), IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (2010) |
Jedediah Berry
Hardcover | Pages: 288 pages Rating: 3.57 | 4398 Users | 766 Reviews
Relation In Pursuance Of Books The Manual of Detection
In this tightly plotted yet mind-expanding debut novel, an unlikely detective, armed only with an umbrella and a singular handbook, must untangle a string of crimes committed in and through people's dreams In an unnamed city always slick with rain, Charles Unwin toils as a clerk at a huge, imperious detective agency. All he knows about solving mysteries comes from the reports he's filed for the illustrious detective Travis Sivart. When Sivart goes missing and his supervisor turns up murdered, Unwin is suddenly promoted to detective, a rank for which he lacks both the skills and the stomach. His only guidance comes from his new assistant, who would be perfect if she weren't so sleepy, and from the pithy yet profound Manual of Detection (think The Art of War as told to Damon Runyon). Unwin mounts his search for Sivart, but is soon framed for murder, pursued by goons and gunmen, and confounded by the infamous femme fatale Cleo Greenwood. Meanwhile, strange and troubling questions proliferate: why does the mummy at the Municipal Museum have modern-day dental work? Where have all the city's alarm clocks gone? Why is Unwin's copy of the manual missing Chapter 18? When he discovers that Sivart's greatest cases - including the Three Deaths of Colonel Baker and the Man Who Stole November 12th - were solved incorrectly, Unwin must enter the dreams of a murdered man and face a criminal mastermind bent on total control of a slumbering city. The Manual of Detection will draw comparison to every work of imaginative fiction that ever blew a reader's mind - from Carlos Ruiz Zafón to Jorge Luis Borges, from The Big Sleep to The Yiddish Policeman's Union. But, ultimately, it defies comparison; it is a brilliantly conceived, meticulously realized novel that will change what you think about how you think.Mention Containing Books The Manual of Detection
Title | : | The Manual of Detection |
Author | : | Jedediah Berry |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 288 pages |
Published | : | February 19th 2009 by Penguin Press HC, The (first published 2009) |
Categories | : | Mystery. Fiction. Fantasy. Science Fiction. Steampunk. Crime |
Rating Containing Books The Manual of Detection
Ratings: 3.57 From 4398 Users | 766 ReviewsCriticism Containing Books The Manual of Detection
The Manual of Detection is a brainy confection of a detective fantasy. Its core mystery is less of the whodunnit crime thriller variety and more of the grand conspiracy variety woven with the cloth of high fantasy (there are flavors of everything in the sauce here from Swift and Peake and Lewis Carroll and Chesterton all the way through to Gaiman and Gilliam). Charles Unwin is the novel's dubious hero - a hyper-meticulous clerk (some of the most wry parts of the novel describe Unwin'sI want to be clear that Im not making fun of people who do this, but almost every Goodreads review Ive read of this book contains some description-by-simile: it's like Kafka; it's like Kafka and Auster collaborating; it's like Kafka's lovechild with Chesterton, writing his own bedtime story; it's like Kafka and Chesterton ejaculated into the skull of Lewis Carroll and made Lethem (early-mid Lethem) drink it; it's like Kafka possessed Neil Gaiman who then wrote the story with a typewriter of cats
I loved this book for about the first third, was on board for about half but finished it in a fog, still admiring Jedidiah Berry's skill but not at all sure I cared or even understood what was going on. Among the book's delights is the description of the world of Charles Unwin, a clerk in a huge, rigidly bureaucratic agency who takes pride in his meticulous documentation of the cases solved by the renowned detective, Sivart. Unwin is comfortable with his routine, attaching his umbrella to his
In an unnamed city which has certain resemblances to early-20th-century New York, many matters are regulated by the Agency, a large, somewhat Kafkaesque organization whose hierarchy runs, in descending order: Watchers, Detectives, Clerks, Under-Clerks. There's not much direct communication between the members of these four strata. Charles Unwin is the clerk whose responsibility it is to formalize, index and file the case reports of Detective Travis Sivart, the city's most prominent detective.
There is a place in St. Louis where, for $12 and a willingness to put up with multitudes of loud children, you can crawl through endless disorienting cave-tunnels, drip down ten-story slides, ride a ferris-wheel 12 stories in the sky, watch trained children perform cat-in-the-hat tricks on 4-foot balls juggling knives, pet a shark, and drink a beer. It is the City Museum, and whatever I say, I cannot accurately describe it for you. It is a child's dream made manifest. Inside the skateboard-less
When I was in my mid-teens, one of my friends was rather obsessed with Film (capital intended). I watched a lot of movies that year, most of which I could tell you little about. Brazil remains completely hazy in my memory, only a single screen shot of a greyscale monolith interior, a voice echoing thinly off the bare walls, clear in my memory. Try as I might, I couldnt get rid of that image while reading The Manual of Detection.********************Of course, I have more to say, but some of it is
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