Head First

Rating:
Summary: Head First
Review: It's amazing what Wlliam Marshall can get away with, every time he takes it over the top. Of course, I'm hardly likely to complain that the zaniness is too much--my favourite Yellowthread Street novel, Thin Air, is one of the wildest ever.

Head First is pretty much in the same league. The main plot, involving bodies of murder victims shipped for burial from mainland China to Hong Kong's (fictional) Hong Bay district, that turn out to have severe and offensive alterations done to them for inexplicable reasons, is blatantly madcap from start to finish. Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer--Yellowthread's star detective--basically goes it alone on the case, doggedly trying to make the inexplicable ex-inexplicable (if I may). But it's certainly a tangled web of..."body laundering", shall we say?, that could wreak political havoc just before the Communists reclaim Hong Kong from the British. In the end, Harry Feiffer discovers that the reasons for the strange murders and mutilations transcend the merely political, and have more to do with the Middle Kingdom's ancient history, and the people left who still rever it. I'll leave it at that.

There are two subplots this time around, both of them fairly wacky too. Spencer and Auden are teamed up yet again, trying to discover who is making letter-carriers' mailbags explode. Auden is in disguise, but has trouble passing himself off as a blue-eyed Sikh letter-carrier complete with turban (something there just isn't right), and has trouble with recipients of mail who have a bone to pick with whoever is delivering. Auden finds that the position of trusty letter-carrier can be a dangerous one, and not just because his mailbag might burst into flame at any moment for reasons unknown. Plus, his partner, Spencer, never seems to be around when things are really getting violent...

Rounding out the all-wacky plotting are O'Yee's tribulations on the phone, back at the squadroom. Some strange woman is requesting that he find her, and with only a few cryptic remarks from her over the phone, O'Yee ends up doing what reads like a bizarre Fletch homage/imitation, calling everyone in China, it seems, until it becomes clear he's got himself involved in some kind of weird (or wacky) political conspiracy. There's also an assassin involved, and O'Yee's determination to get to the bottom of things gets said assassin's goat. That's all I'll say.

So, it's all over-the-top, in Head First. But keep track of what links to what, lose yourself in the frenzy, and enjoy. This is another winner.