Friday, October 4, 2024

Review: For Your Benefit by Patrick Canning


 Genre: Detective/Satire

Description:

“Teddy Lint is the kindest private investigator on the planet, committed to seeing the best in everyone he meets. The detective agency he runs out of a Los Angeles strip mall with his brother Ralph has seen a strange case or two before, but never anything like this.

A man claiming to work for the CIA hires the Lints to find a shipping container of radioactive Agent Orange that vanished over fifty years ago. He insists someone is planning on using an army of drones to drench L.A. with the deadly chemicals before the week is out.

The Lint Brothers enter a maze of bizarre suspects, from nefarious ad executives, to anarchistic Boy Scouts, to a toga-clad militia fighting for exclusive rule by women. The propaganda-obsessed society that seems to be running the world is probably worth looking into as well.

The power of empathy collides with the dangers of disinformation as Teddy fights to save the people he loves. Our beloved detective doesn't give up easily, but any Angelenos with an aversion to death by herbicide might want to dust off that umbrella, just in case . . .”

Author:

“Patrick Canning is the author of For Your Benefit (2024), Cryptonalia (2021), Hawthorn Woods (2020), The Colonel and the Bee (2018), and Cryptofauna (2018).

His work often blends genres, combining elements of humor, adventure, fantasy, and mystery into stories with imaginative settings, quirky characters, and typos.

Patrick lives in Chicago with his Australian Shepherd, Hank. When he isn’t writing, he enjoys walks on the lakefront, being excited/worrying about AI, and eating his bodyweight in potatoes.”

Appraisal:

This was an interesting read. It was described to me as a “satirical detective novel” and I wasn’t sure how satire was going to work with a mystery or detective story. I found the characters in this to be interesting, amusing (the satirical qualities were at least part of that), and, as you’d want with a detective novel, the story kept me guessing, having little clue what direction things were going. There were times when it felt like my ability to suspend disbelief was being stretched to its limit, but I think the strange detectives allowed me to keep believing and continue reading since I really wanted to know where the story was going to end up. All in all it made for a fun and very unique read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an advance reviewer copy, so I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

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