| Title: | Casual Rex | |
| Author: | Eric Garcia | |
| Rating: |  | |
| Alt Review Link: | dougshaw.com forum review |
This is the second in a series (of three, so far) dinosaur detective books. Dinosaurs live among us - disguised as humans - and our hero is one of them. In fact he - Vincent Rubio - is an herb addicted raptor. (Herbs are intoxicants to dinos - even mundane stuff like basil and cumin.)
In this case, Rubio and his partner Ernie set off to find the brother of Ernie's ex-wife who's been drawn into a dino cult. It gets more complex from there, of course.
Garcia writes well, and most of the time it just works. I occasionally had to choke back an "Oh yeah? The humans never note that, eh?" thought, but not all that often.
For me the most amusing thing about the entire book is the idea that dinosaurs have their own equivalent of the Human Empowerment movement - call it Dino Empowerment - but in the book it's called Progress. It's a great mirror for our society in a way.
The final confrontation is funny for who some of the combatants are (or appear to be) and was clearly written from a visual perspective. I wonder if the movie rights are already purchased? Someone in Hollywood is probably trying to figure out if these books can be filmed or not.
A light hearted and fun book, though if you're squeamish about drug use and/or sex (between dinosaurs) then it might not be for you.
