- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Berkley (TRD); Reprint edition (Mar 7 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425183394
- ISBN-13: 978-0425183397
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 2.3 x 20.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #976,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
There are any number of ways to approach Hollywood Boulevard, but for pure shock value, the key is to strike at the heart of the beast, right where the cheese factor is the highest: the intersection of Hollywood and Highland Avenue. That's Limburger, baby, with a side of extra stink.With this kind of snappy commentary, Vincent Rubio may seem like your average hard-boiled, cold-blooded Los Angeles PI. But as Eric Garcia's legions of fans already know from Anonymous Rex, Vincent is anything but average--though he is cold-blooded. Garcia's conceit, so cleverly fashioned that it seems oddly natural, is that dinosaurs never really became extinct and that your next-door neighbor might just be a T. rex in a latex costume. It's a twist that allows Garcia to poke fun at our human quirks ("Ankylosaurs have difficulty expressing emotion visually. Think Al Gore."), but it doesn't detract in the slightest from his well-paced, drolly comic noir.
In Casual Rex, a prequel to the first novel, Vincent, a velociraptor, gets conned into helping out his partner Ernie's ex-wife Louise. Ernie still can't resist Louise's "lilac and warm oatmeal" pheromone signature and crocodile tears (almost literally, since Louise is "one of those unfortunate dinosaurs for whom the lachrymal glands are still overproductive, even after millions of years of evolution worked this kink out of the rest of our systems"). When she comes to the agency with a story of her younger brother Rupert's involvement in a dino cult, the pair quickly find themselves masquerading as cult members, or Progressives. The Progressives are intent on reclaiming their dinosaur ancestry, or as they put it, "becoming 100% Dinosaur Natural."
The smooth talk and the stunning beauty of cult leader Circe, whose velociraptor pores emit a dizzying scent of rosemary, fennel, and thyme (all powerful dino intoxicants), fascinates even skeptical Vincent. But it quickly becomes apparent that something dangerous is simmering beneath the surface of the cult. The only question is whether Vincent and Ernie will figure out what's going on before they become 100% Dinosaur Dead.
Garcia's first novel became something of a cult item in its own right. Fans will be happy to know that Casual Rex delivers the goods again; it's funny enough to render the sophomore jinx extinct. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Vincent Rubio is your typical PI: He's single, drives a Lincoln, has trouble saying no to a good-looking woman and occasionally takes photos of unfaithful husbands with their mistresses for extra cash. The only things separating him from other hard-boiled private eyes are his tail, claws and reptilian hide. In this prequel to the popular Anonymous Rex, Garcia spins another comical scenario involving Vincent and a host of other dinosaurs who never became extinct and have integrated themselves into modern society by covering up with human-looking latex costumes. Once readers get over the initial oddness of the idea, a somewhat normal detective story materializes: Vincent and his partner, Ernie, are hired by Ernie's ex-wife (herself a T. Rex) to rescue her brother Rupert from a cult group he's become involved in. As they immerse themselves in Rupert's recovery, Vincent and Ernie learn more about the cult, a sort of heritage club for dinosaurs who call themselves the Progressives. Further investigation uncovers some shady doings, and the two detectives throw themselves headlong into an inquiry involving the Progressives and other young dinos who've been lured in like Rupert. Meanwhile, in a nutty side story, the dino-shamuses agree to help their landlord get back a certain human body part of his that his girlfriend stole. Garcia keeps the jokes coming, bordering on overwriting but coming out on top to present a tale that's slightly cornball, at times hilarious and unquestionably original--though not as original as the first novel and exuding a faint air of shtick. Agent, Barbara Zitwer. (Mar. )Forecast: Fans of Garcia's first novel will enthusiastically gravitate to this follow-up, and the author's X-Files take on the classic detective tale will appeal to both mystery and SF readers. Here's a series with dino-sized legs.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The ingeniously weird prequel to Anonymous Rex,
By Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Casual Rex (Paperback)
This novel has gotten a fair amount of hype - and, I would argue, deservedly so because it really is unusual, memorable, and well-written. I must admit I didn't find the book as funny as I expected it to be, however. Certainly, there is a lot of humor in these pages, but this is a much deeper story than the quirky farce I expected it to be - and that is actually a good thing. There is one scene in the book, for example, that really captures the heartrending pain of a father who has lost his only son to suicide - and the comical bits surrounding it only make it that much more touching and poignant.Casual Rex is, first and foremost, a mystery - told in the classic first person, film noir-ish, hard-boiled private eye perspective. The kicker, though, is the fact that Vincent Rubio is a dinosaur - a Velociraptor, to be exact. It seems that dinosaurs survived the great cataclysm 65 million years ago, after all; they witnessed the rise of homo sapiens and now dwell among them (in much smaller bodies than their ancestors), their true identities hidden by elaborate guises involving lots of straps, buckles, and epoxy. No human knows that dinosaurs live among them, but the dinosaurs themselves can easily identify one another by smell. They can be found in every profession, so whenever one of their kind kicks the bucket, needs some dental work, or goes out looking for entertainment, they're taken care of outside the prying eyes of humans. Victor and his partner Ernie are your basic PI's - snooping on roving spouses, hunting down prostitutes with sticky hands (wait a minute there - I'm talking about stealing), etc. That humdrum state of existence changes when Ernie's ex-wife asks them to find her brother and bring him home (forcibly, if necessary). It seems the poor kid has gotten all caught up in a dino cult called the Progressives. Most dinosaurs have accepted the fact that they have to go to great pains to pass themselves off as humans, but some yearn for the old lifestyle, free of their human guises and able to kick back and do the kinds of things the dinosaur ancestors used to do (much of which involves the free use of a lot of very sharp teeth). Vic and Ernie infiltrate the cult and get their man - but that's just the beginning of the story. There's something really sinister going on here, and our detective heroes are determined to find out just what the Progressives are up to. Their mission eventually leads them to a back-to-nature retreat in the islands of Hawaii, where they learn even more than they bargained for about the cult. The fact that Casual Rex wasn't quite as funny as I expected it to be is certainly not a bad thing - I didn't really expect much of a plot, so I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of meat to this story. It does, after all, deal with such serious issues as drug abuse (ah, sweet basil), cults, murder, and your proverbial world domination and genocide - as well as friendship, honor, and humanity (or whatever the dinosaur equivalent of that would be). The writing style is delightfully quirky, the absurdist setting is effectively presented (with explanations of dinosaur culture over the millennia enriched by rich and numerous off-the-cuff remarks), the action is well-paced, the tragedies that take place over the course of the novel are surprisingly poignant, and a rising level of suspense (not to mention curiosity) definitely draws the reader in and carries him/her all the way to the end. Be forewarned, though: if you read one of Eric Garcia's novels, you will very likely want to read them all.
5.0 out of 5 stars
a must read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Casual Rex (Paperback)
matchstick men (by the same author) is out now as a movie in theaters... excellent flick... i am still partial to eric garcia's Rex series.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Jurassic classic,
By R. Witte (Croton-on-Hudson, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Casual Rex (Paperback)
In this prequel to Eric Garcia's ANONYMOUS REX, private investigator (and velociraptor) Vincent Rubio gets duped into helping his partner locate his ex-wife's brother who is part of a cult known as the Progressives.Allow yourself to suspend your belief in the premise of a society of dinosaurs roaming the streets of L.A. disguised as humans, and you'll have a blast reading Eric Garcia's highly imaginative dino-noir classics. CASUAL REX, like its predecessor, is witty, charming and lots of fun.
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