Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing twentysomething siblings eking out a living in rural Northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can't exactly dial 911, so they move the body and wait for the police to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper . . . and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two.
When collaborators Lutz and Hayward (former romantic partners) start to disagree about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop surprising characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and sibling rivalry reaches homicidal intensity. Think Adaptation crossed with Weeds. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first?
What a unique little gem of a book! This novel was extremely playful with its language and it seriously augmented my vocabulary. I didn't even know some of these words existed before reading them (mostly in David Hayward's chapters) - for example: caliginous (misty, dim; obscure, dark) and asperous (rough; uneven). There were hilarious messages between the authors separating the chapters. They were honestly my favorite parts of the book...personal anecdotes that eventually erode into bitter (and funny) banter. After Lisa's many complaints over David's pretentious vocabulary choices he cleverly disrespects her in Chapter 14...I literally laughed out loud. Also, there are footnotes throughout the story (inserted by the other co-author) that kept me snorting with amusement. Such a fun and quirky book! To get an idea of the authors' relationship check out this fun little interview:
4.5/5 stars
