Sea No Evil (A Crag Banyon Mystery) by James Mullaney

Sea No Evil is the third in James Mullaney’s Crag Banyon Mystery series that is part hard-boiled detective spoof, part mystery, part fantasy fiction and part out and out comedy. Crag Banyon is every kind of seedy, liquor-stained, own-ass-covering, excuse for a P.I. you could imagine and his latest adventure sees him kept away from lounging on his usual bar stool by a rather fishy mystery! The ocean is in chaos, fish are scarce and sea monsters are eating Oscar-winning film directors: God of the Sea, Poseidon, is receiving hate mail and his trident has been stolen resulting in aquatic anarchy wrought on the city courtesy of a parka and grass skirt-wearing harbinger of doom. Crag is determined not to take Poseidon’s case, but with the parka starting to make things personal, can he afford not to?!

Sea No Evil is a brilliantly written, highly original and completely unclassifiable book! It has smart, snappy dialogue, a very witty turn of phrase, hilarious descriptions and marvellous characters. There is a joke almost every other line and, for a time, the story almost became secondary to the witty gags flying about and I found myself having to go back every now and again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. The set up and story both put a very original spin on the detective genre, with enough familiarity to be appealing to lovers of hard-boiled and P.I. fiction. I can fully recommend this book to anyone with a love of humour and a fully-functioning sense of the ridiculous. Reviewed by Julia for Readers’ Favorite.