2010: #25 – The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (Christopher Moore)

Book #25 was The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore.  The back of the book reads:

The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what’s wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.

This was my favorite of the three Pine Cove books.  Here we get what Moore does best — a colorful cast of characters mired in an extremely unusual situation.  In this case, there’s a mysterious sea beast in town, making the newly un-drugged residents of Pine Cove somewhat… amorous. Constable Theo Crowe knows *something* is going on, but he’s not too sure what.  All he knows is that he doesn’t believe housewife Bess Leander killed herself, and it’s up to him to find out who really killed her. The only one who really has an idea of what is going on is mostly-out-of-her-mind ex-B-movie-queen Molly Michon, and who’s going to believe her? This is the Moore I first enjoyed with A Dirty Job.

Audiobook length: 8 hrs 45 min | Word count: 80,680

2009: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)
2008: One Mississippi (Mark Childress)
2007: Deal Breaker (Harlan Coben)
2006: Witness in Death (J.D. Robb)
2005: Ceremony in Death (J.D. Robb)

Used in these Challenges: The Four Month Challenge; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Audiobook Challenge; TwentyTen Challenge;