The Always Anonymous Beast by Lauren Wright Douglas

The Always Anonymous Beast by Lauren Wright Douglas

The Naiad Press, 1987.

Overview: This book features a detective who is a biiiiiig fan of McDonald’s and other fast food joints. (Seriously, the number of times she goes to McDonald’s alone is impressive.) Caitlin Reece, said fast-food addict, also likes her .357 Smith and Wesson, women, and Shakespeare (the title is a Shakespeare reference). In The Always Anonymous Beast, she investigates the blackmail of a television broadcaster married to an insanely jealous husband and a lesbian professor who studies nonviolent resistance and conflict resolution. This book doesn’t strictly fit our mission statement, since the blackmailer is pretty homophobic and misogynistic, but I just had to reward the absurdity of this book with a review.

My reaction: This wasn’t the best mystery ever, and sadly most of my enjoyment from it came from laughing at the kind of over-the-top nature of the whole thing. You know how you don’t see characters doing necessary functions all the time in books? Well, here I felt like we saw a lot more: and damn, Caitlin’s into fast food! And alcohol. Nothing wrong with either of those things (except maybe alcohol when YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING MULTIPLE LIVES INCLUDING YOUR OWN??!!), but those tics, combined with the ridiculous interactions with the blackmailer, are part of the reason this is a “meh.” On the other hand, I have to give Douglas props for the most inventive murder I’ve read in a while. It’s a goody!