It was a simple life for Charles Unwin. He rode his bicycle everyday to the Agency where he worked as a clerk. For the last 20 years, Unwin had been assigned to transcribe and file the case notes taken by Detective Travis Sivart, a man he’s never met. And, a man who is now missing.

But what becomes of a detective’s clerk once he’s lost his detective? Why, a promotion of course. Charles Unwin’s first assignment is to find out what has become of Detective Sivart. With any luck, he will solve this mystery and loose his promotion, reclaiming his rightful place as an Agency clerk.

In The Manual of Detection, author Jedediah Berry takes the “hapless hero” down new paths. Specifically, those of dreams.

Interweaving the feel on Alice in Wonderland, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dick Tracy and the works of Jasper Fforde, author Berry leads the reader through dark, seedy city streets and run down carnivals and from one character’s dreams to another searching, not only for the missing detective but the murderer of another character. At one point taking us into a dream within a dream!

Berry meticulously colors the detectives’ world in blues, greens and browns while coloring the carnival world in reds, yellows and oranges. And, as for Detective Sivart? In Unwin’s dreams, he is always in the shades of grey of a newspaper clipping, which is the only way Unwin has ever seen him. This may seem a rather incidental detail, but, with the dream hopping done in this book, it gives the reader a wonderful visual focus point.

Best read in one or two marathon sessions, The Manual of Detection is a “house of mirrors” for the readers’ imagination.

• Title: The Manual of Detection
• Author: Jedediah Berry
• Publisher: Penguin Press

• ISBN: 978-159-420-2117

NoBSBookReviews

*****************************************************************************

comment below