Book Review: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is the absolute gold standard in comic writing. I have read Scott Adams, Terry Pratchett, etc. but Douglas Adams' incredibly funny writing shall stand the test of space and time and science and newly discovered planets/ species and schools made up of new comedy writers.

"Dirk Gently" is Adams' second book series after the astronomically funny and successful "Hitchhiker's Guide" series. It is perhaps because of the humungous success of the first series (the book, the radio show, the movie, the video game and the bath towel - as Adams likes to keep reminding everyone in each of his books), that "Dirk Gently" pales somewhat in comparison. For even though it is as funny (and sometimes more in sections... there is an especially funny hard to forget comical section about Dirk and his secretary), Adams fails to weave all the illogical nonsense together with his inimitable scientific logic and that leads to a sort of damp squib at the end.

The book is still quite readable; but coming from Adams, I just expected more. A measure of how funny the book actually was is that even though I thought the plot failed me, I have already purchased the next one in the 'Dirk Gently' series.