This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us

May 28, 2018
Twins Adrian Kimrean and Zooey Kimrean, the PI protagonists of this winning spoof from bestseller Cantero (Meddling Kids), are collectively known as A.Z. Kimrean, since their personalities occupy the same body. They are polar opposites. Super cerebral Adrian has a high IQ and a photographic memory; Zooey is a creative type who paints, writes, and plays musical instruments—she’s also a nymphomaniac. They maintain an office at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, where one day Deputy Chief Llewelyn Carlyle of the SFPD arrives in need of a favor. Someone has killed the grown son of Victor Lyon, the supreme ruler of the San Carnal, Calif., drug cartel, and Lyon is about to start a gang war that could threaten police plans to bring down the cartel. A.Z. agrees to help out. Literary references (Bret Easton Ellis, John Grisham, and Ayn Rand in one sentence), clever quips (“an arrogance of college jocks”), and bad puns (a carpenter who loses his tools is a “saw loser”) keep the pages turning. Few will be able to resist Cantero’s broad, quirky humor. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency.

January LaVoy narrates this witty mystery with ease, allowing clever writing to shine. Listeners join a brother-and-sister PI team who are called in by the San Francisco Police to stop a series of murders that are triggering a gang war. The siblings' personalities are diverse to the extreme. While there's nothing strange about that, the fact that the two siblings inhabit the same body adds a twist to this madcap story, taking noir fiction to the extreme. LaVoy doesn't fully differentiate the voices of the siblings, allowing the listener to get a sense of their really being a single body with two inhabitants. LaVoy's well-paced and calm narration sets the perfect tone for a plot liberally sprinkled with twists, dark humor, and vulgarities. K.J.P. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine