Waiting for Godalming

Robert Rankin

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

If it's God's will, then who gets the money?

God is dead. He died in mysterious circumstances while on a fishing trip to Norfolk, leaving a wife, three children and a great deal of valuable property.

According to God's last will and testament, he left his beloved planet Farth to his youngest son, Colin. Which seems mightily suspicious as the meek were expecting to inherit it. Colin is all for flogging it off to the highest bidder, a ehum of his called Lou Cipher God's wife is all for calling in a private eye, to expose the truth about her husband's sudden death. And if you're going to call in a private eye, then there's only one man you can call. And that's Lazlo Woodbine.

This could well be the great detective's biggest challenge ever And with Laz on the case you know you can expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a trail of corpses leading down an alleyway, a good deal of toot being talked in bars and a really spectacular rooftop ending.

It's Dallas meets Deuteronomy meets Dirty Harry in a Divine Comedy to out-Apocalypse them all.

Review by Nigel (310301) Rating (8/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 8/10
Robert Rankin... where to begin? Not an easy question to answer.

If you picked up a Rankin for the first time I think you would wonder what the hell you were reading. Rankin has a very unique style that has developed over many years and each new book sort of needs the previous ones to make any sense, even though they are not sequels or a series, as such. Thinking about it they might actually be sequels or a series, although I'm not totally sure.

This story sees the ace detective Lazlo Woodbine embark upon the BIG ONE... the case of cases. The Murder of GOD no less.

As always Lazlo has help from his guardian sprout Barry and the Ministry of Serendipity plays its usual nefarious part.

I'm happy to report this one of Rankin's better novels... it does actually make a kind of sense as a stand alone and the story unfolds in a traditional 'beginning, middle, end' manner.

Robert Rankin is a brilliant author that you will either love or hate, there is no middle ground. The only way to make up your mind is have a read.
Nigel (31st March 2001)