‘Me and The Monkey’ by Andy Darby is The Chronicles of The Monkey God Vol 1.
A title that immediately made me think of a Robbie Williams track of one of his albums. It’s a track I loved and I began to read this book with that track playing. That music and this book really made for a crazy day in my house anyway!
Well, there’s this talking monkey who won me in a game of Othello in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. He came back to Cornwall with me and has become a prolific reader and dabbler in magic. He also has past-life flashbacks – the most prominent of which are the Nam special forces ones. We have partially deceased girlfriends who apparently eat dead bodies. The Monkey created a sort of black hole in the spare bedroom and now we have a team of nerds investigating it and trying to stop ‘things’ coming out of it. A bunch of Oriental hitmen who appear to believe he is a god attempted to steal The Monkey’s magic lollypop sticks, but he managed to blow them up in their caravan. We are off to Cambodia in search of a temple from which came a monkey-faced pendant with glowing eyes and we seem to have upset an international cabal who are out to get us. Oh, and did I mention that The Monkey likes a cigar and we regularly get very drunk on Jack Daniels…
Not my usual read in any way, shape or form, but I loved it as you love a crazy, unpredictable adventure. I was captivated by this sweary, cigar smoking and JD drinking monkey. The dark humour in this story made me laugh so much. Monkey God even has a past life as a Vietnam veteran and we are treated to his flashbacks as well. I forgot to mention he has ancient powers too.
The surreal story just keeps giving as the Illuminati are involved and Nazi Occultism too… it’s a madcap journey that gets weirder and weirder but I revelled in this fantastical story that regularly went of on a tangent.
If you need an escape and love off the wall fiction, here’s the book you need. I am wondering if I could cope with a Monkey God like this one even though I am sure we would have fun!
Thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources and Andy Darby for this colourful, crazy and entertaining book.
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 