MORE DIRTY WORK
Published: January 2, 2021
In More Dirty Work — the sequel to Brett Sody’s debut crime parody novel Dirty Work — detective Pete Young, SAPOL’s organic whole-food munching crime specialist, and the youngest ever in the history of the police force, re-engages his arch-enemy Chad Oldman but the stakes have seriously ramped up, with crimes, antagonists and bodies mounting with alarming speed.
The plot is driven by the desperate need to raise fifty grand for a gender re-assignment operation for Al, a character who appears to be either a relative or very close friend of Chad who is currently under covert DSS surveillance .
Electronically eavesdropping into the Oldman household to monitor a Social Security issue, DSS Covert Surveillance officer Gene Tandy also becomes aware of a proliferation of antagonists but his attention is sidetracked by an attempted blackmail stunt and the sexy host of a TV cooking show who is about to be dragged into the whole bleeding mess!
Up-to-the-minute IT resources are brought in to assist — and replace — the overwhelmed Gene with the surveillance but nothing can apparently prevent the escalation of crimes and subsequent damage. The number of new corpses can be counted on trimmed toes as plot after plot— attempted bank heists, kidnapping and ransom demands — fail to generate the expected returns Al requires.
Sailing back into the middle of this is local band The Shire who are urged into deceit and corruption in a desperate grab for stardom or, at least, recognition. It mounts up to a monumental cluster of muck that only the clear-thinking, healthy-living Detective Pete Young can resolve either in or out of the Force.
Or can he…?
No spoiler but ultimately it is Detective Pete who gathers enough clues to bring the story to an explosive cliff-hanging climax, preparing the way for yet more Dirty Work.
More Dirty Work skips along at almost conversational speed, still in the same voice that was characteristic in the previous novel. A bit of a mindbender once again, but ingenious and funny.
The humour is dark — brutal, yet comical — dry and witty. The narrative is amusing, terms of phrase inventive and, for good measure, some delicious Italian cuisine gets tossed into the mix through the machinations of Connie’s Bitching’Kitchen, the much admired-cooking show and its magnetic host.
A snappy read that will have you wondering how many miscreants do you need to make a mess in the kitchen.