Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2014 November 14 • Friday

The final book in the Carter trilogy, Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon, takes the humor that distinguished the other two books and runs with it.

Competent and level-headed, Carter has always been a grown up in a world of children. This third book makes him the babysitter for a host of really poorly behaved adult brats, which is the main source of the comedy. The rest of it comes from the old reliable fish out of water scenario. Carter finds himself not in the London he knows and loves but in Spain, enduring all manner of things he hates (planes, driving, tourists, etc.).

Ostensibly sent on vacation he finds he's sharing his bosses' Spanish villa with a neanderthal-like American mobster. As bad as that is, things only get worse as other irritating people show up to join the party.

There isn't as much action as in the first two books but it's still very enjoyable, well written and alternatingly funny and disturbing. There is some foreshadowing of events in Jack's Return Home. Several references to British culture and sport of (presumably) the time went over my head. The first line is "The rain slides down my bedroom window".