Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: The Beloved Cult Classic From Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently Series Book 1)

Douglas Adams stands apart from other authors in having most of his books professionally dramatised. This book is no exception, although I found it was the one that eluded my attention the longest.Starting off with a lot of confusion & seemingly jumbled information, I initially put it aside for 1 year or so thinking that it was a bad note in an otherwise flawless collection of work.However, I gave it another go &, once you get beyond the first CD, the plot begins to make sense & you understand why the book was written in such a way.The basic plot is that Richard McDuff is falsely accused of murder after his boss (Gordon Way) is slain outside his car. McDuff then teams up with Dirk Gently (an enigmatic friend from college who has mysterious abilities) in order to find evidence to clear his name.So far, so predictable.What really makes stands this audio book out from the average detective yarn is the science included throughout the plot & the interesting complexities created by the Holistic nature of the universe (e.g. the fundamental inter-connectedness of all things, combined with time travel, means that a completed version of Kublai Khan (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge) spells the end of the human race).And I suppose this is why it is such a great book - the plot & the sheer strangeness of the material demand repeat listening/ reading & rewards such people with added insights into what is an astonishingly intricate & well written plot.Add to this that the story has been fully dramatised, with a well picked cast (including Harry Enfield at his best in the role of Dirk Gently) & you will find a true treat waiting to be discovered.Get beyond the complexities of Adams' most difficult work & the scientific insights are there for the taking...

Douglas Adams' take on detective fiction is playful, imaginative, full of whimsy and quantum theory. I sometimes think my sense of humour must be a bit odd or lacking (maybe that's true of most people!) in that half of what I'm told I will find funny leaves me sighing noisily, thinking `but that is so UNFUNNY'. This, however, tickled my funny bone and then some. But then I've always appreciated the fly in humour. Dada and the Theatre Of The Absurd amused me, and the frankly unexpected delights. How often do you expect that a thinking horse, ridden by a malfunctioning robot monk would enter a mysterious time door in a cave in an unpink desert, and that this would result in the horse appearing in a 2nd floor bathroom in Cambridge. Frankly, it's never happened to me, yet, but now I'm living in eager anticipation....Basic premise (as with a lot of detective stories) is that there has been a murder. All evidence points to our charming hero, Richard. WE know he's not guilty. Enter the rather shady Dirk Gently, ex Cambridge undergraduate, last seen in police custody some years previously, now running an holistic detective agency. Holistic because it is based on the interconnectedness of all things. Which brings us to Quantum Theory. And Schrodinger's cat. Any event in the space-time continuum can connect to any other. Adams can therefore assemble a joyously random collection of people, things and events, and weave them together. The unfolding of randomness, particularly as it is so VERY weird, doesn't leave the reader (well, this reader) sighing noisily yet again going, `oh, come on, TOO MANY coincidences' . In an interconnected world there ARE no coincidences, everything connects . And because his connections are so cleverly daft, its fun to see what gets linked together.My experience of reading this book was like watching a very very clever juggler at work - one with a great line in witty repartee; part of the enjoyment is not only seeing the skill but wondering IF he will drop something - The horse? The Coleridge? The salt-cellar?This is, I'm sure, a love or loathe book. If you liked Adams daft, but clever way of perceiving the world in `Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' you are probably some way to finding that this too will have you smiling, chuckling, chortling and generally pleased you gave yourself up to enjoyment, Dirk Gently style.And we all owe Samuel Taylor Coleridge more than we could ever repay. Or at least his visitor

Classic....funny, weird, clever, classic Adams....great read, take a chance and jump right in to a strange out of this world written story that in my opinion will do nothing but entertain. (By the way, nothing like the Netflix series, or rather the Netflix series is nothing like this original book) I won’t ruin the story but this book takes you on a great journey, well several off the wall journeys that will leave you saying, what? Wow!

Perfectly conceived, perfectly plotted and perfectly written. A joy to read, very funny and very clever. What more can be said?

A book for everybody who likes Douglas Adams and hasn't read the Dirk Gently books so far. Was great fun to read!

I have never laughed this much reading a book. I love reading D.A.

Assisti à série na Netflix e fiquei apaixonado! O livro é excelente, leitura cativante e envolvente! Recomendo a todos. Leitura imperdível

Buen libro, el detalle es que viene en inglés completamente y yo no me dí cuenta, pero me sirve para animarme a aprender.

GOOD