Noir
Set in a 1947 San Francisco that could exist only in the inventive mind of Christopher Moore, Noir starts when a Mysterious Blonde walks into Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin’s bar. (Her name, btw, is Stilton, so Sammy calls her “The Cheese”; clearly, she is the Big Cheese!) And then the delightfully convoluted action starts, as an Air Force general from Roswell, New Mexico, shows up wanting Sammy (who’s the go-to guy with serious street connections when you want something done) to provide female “entertainment” for a Mysterious Meeting. Oh, and Sammy’s black mamba has escaped and is somewhere in San Francisco. Then there’s the flying saucer that crashed near Roswell, and the Mysterious Moon Man that Sammy and the Cheese discover when Sammy has to rescue her from the Mysterious Meeting…
As you can deduce, “plot we’ve got, quite a lot” – but the convoluted plot is seriously secondary to the atmosphere and wordplay. This delightful romp reads as if it were written in 1947 (except for a Star Wars reference that clanks its way into the prose). Unfortunately, this involves actual 1947 attitudes and language, which may make this a non-starter for some readers. Noir is very much a “your mileage may vary” book. However, the combination of Sammy, the Cheese, a Mysterious Chinese, a Moon Man, and a talkative snake, produce a genre the author has dubbed “Perky Noir” – and as always, Moore writes with verve. This wild romp is recommended with the above caveat about the outdated attitudes.
