Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Amazon.ca: Adams: Books

Product Description

Book Description

There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.

From the Publisher

Now, New Millennium Audio presents all the works of Douglas Adams on audiobook. The science-fiction trilogy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and its four companions, all available, as well as The Salmon of Doubt. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
This time there would be no witnesses. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book by Douglas Adams, Oct 4 2009

By

Mr. Arkats - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Paperback)

Terrific writing, as only Douglas Adams can produce. This book seems to make quite a bit more sense than its sequel (The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul) at first reading, and I would consider it to be slightly more "polished" in style. A fairly quick read, but also enriched with trademark DA wit, and social/theological commentary.

Well worth reading, if only for the bit about the horse.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Witty titles were never my strong point, July 15 2004

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Oymaprat (Nowhere In Particular) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Mass Market Paperback)

First of all I would like to say that I'm not the sort of person who needs everything to make sense to enjoy something (I'm a Doctor Who fan for Christs sake!) so that is something that helps me love this book.
Mr Adams was (and boy do I hate saying was) a master craftsman. He could be intelligent, witty and plain wierd at the same time and still have room for a bit of sentimentality.
I'm pretty confident that if you're reading this then you have enjoyed another of Mr Adams works. In which case I'm sure that you will delight in reading this as it is in the same style as many of his other books. It is fair to compare it to the Hitchhiker series as it is done in much the same vain. In my opinion it is as good as the aforementioned. Yes so the ending doesn't totally fit everyones perspective of great, but it suits me. It's full of lots of ideas that didn't neccessarily works out, but for me that is just as great; trying to work out what Mr Adams had as alternate plots. Even though the title charactor doesn't turn up till a good half way in, his soon to be friend, Richard Macduff does a good enough job of entertaining us. One to one, I strongly reccomend this to any other Adams fan, and for that matter any other fan of literature. It is truely great, as is its sequal.

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5.0 out of 5 stars P.G. Wodehouse meets Dr. Who: a complete pleasure, July 8 2004

By

Trevor Kettlewell "trevsbookreviews" (Nowra, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Mass Market Paperback)

If you got P.G. Wodehouse to write a Dr. Who script you might come up with something like this. Why not? Apparently as well as script editing for series 17 (featuring, for example, 'City of Death' where John Cleese is an art dealer), Adams wrote a couple of episodes ('The Pirate Planet', and the unfinished 'Shada' which featured none other than Prof. 'Reg' Chronitis and his TARDIS style study). Sorry, enough trainspotting (thanks G & J).

The Dr. Who thing only hit me late in the book, but that's partly because 'Dirk Gently' only pops up about half way through, and he's most enjoyably reminiscent of Tom Baker in his distracted purposefulness. I suppose there's something of Ford Prefect there too, and other elements of Hitch Hikers - yet another confused alien species looking to earth as an Eden and changing the deep past and whole evolution of humanity. And I suppose Richard could be played by whoever was DentArthurDent in the TV show.

But, hey, this isn't having a go at the book, which is sheer pleasure to read. It's not at all a cheap carbon of earlier Adams, there's just some lovely echoes. The guy just writes so wonderfully - like Wodehouse - and the dialogue is full of good (frightfully British) humour and character. Moreover the comic observations on the everyday are clever and flawlessly executed. The setting is surprisingly coherent when you get down to it (I *love* the way he casually resolves the sofa paradox that's been running through the whole book) - there's really nothing I can think of to complain about with it. I'm used to books lifting me up and then disappointing, but this manages to ebulliently float you along from start to finish.

I'm so glad I decided to start rereading books. It must be over a decade since I'd read this and I only had the vaguest recollection of some of the key images. But the chief pleasure of Adams can't be reduced to, say, the plot line, which, while fine, is in one way incidental (i.e. the characters and dialogue are good enough to stand alone). I get the impression he was in a fairly positive state of mind when he wrote this (as opposed to Mostly Harmless), and in excellent form, so these character's are simply pleasant to be with - as well as being hilarious and - as with those of Pratchett on a good day - charming.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun
It's not the best of Douglas Adams. But it's still good.

Published on April 25 2006

3.0 out of 5 stars Gets points for trying to be different, but is average
"Dirk Gently's Holistic Dectective Agency" is an OK book. It is a different kind of mystery, as Douglas Adams intended. Read more

Published on May 15 2004 by Peter LaPrade