I had another train journey last week, so that meant another new-to-me Adrian Monk mystery to read. If you know anything about Monk as a character, then you’ll appreciate the title with its double meaning. It turns out that the title was suggested by someone who commented on the author’s blog.
Synopsis
‘California and Adrian Monk are in a financial crisis when he’s fired by the SFPD and finds his savings are gone. Bob Sebes, the leader of Reinier Investments, swindled his clients, including Monk. When a key witness is killed, Monk is convinced that Sebes, under house-arrest, did it. Being jobless and broke, Monk can devote all of his obsessive energy to solving this latest mystery.’
Overall Thoughts
I liked how Goldberg used a contemporary situation, the widespread economy crisis, as a vehicle for saying something about the personalities of his main characters, in particular Adrian Monk and I think the details he used to symbolise the bigger problem are also well chosen:
‘Some guys showed up the other day at the house next door, mowed the dead lawn, and spray-painted it green. The banks were doing that to a lot of foreclosed homes in my neighbourhood. I was current with my mortgage payments and my grass wasn’t dead, but I was tempted to ask the guys to paint my lawn just so it would look as good from a distance as everybody else’s. The great detective Adrian Monk, my obsessive-compulsive employer, also liked the idea of spray-painting my lawn, but that was because he loves uniformity. It didn’t matter to Monk that there was something inherently absurd about painting dead plants and that it might be a symptom of a much bigger problem than dying lawns. For instance, Monk has an amazing eye for detail, but I’m sure he didn’t notice that the gourmet cheese shop […] had closed.’
Furthermore, Adrian’s lack of a response or awareness to the wider situation also presents an opportunity to present his flaws:
‘Monk was oblivious to the suffering, economic or otherwise, of those around him because he was totally preoccupied with his own. For him, suffering was a way of life, a vocation and an art form, something to wallow in with misery and, as odd as this may sound, a certain amount of comfort. Suffering was familiar and pleasurable to him as happiness is to the rest of us.’
In keeping with Monk’s character, the fact there is a global financial crisis going on, only finally gets his attention when his local supermarket no longer sells the only brand of water he will drink, the company having gone bust. It is interesting seeing later in the narrative how his brother Ambrose, who avoids leaving his own home at all costs, is more clued into the problem and is better able to plan ahead.
Into the chaos this discovery causes, a phone call interrupts, inviting Monk to look at a new case. Natalie Teeger (Monk’s assistants and the series narrator) writes: ‘[…] I saw who was calling. It was death.’ Yet on the very next page, Natalie calls out tendency for writers to use chapter ending cliff-hangers for dramatic purposes: ‘Okay, maybe that last line was a bit melodramatic, but whenever Captain Leland Stottlemeyer called me, it was usually because he needed me to bring Monk to the scene of a murder.’
Perhaps because I have read quite a few of the Adrian Monk mysteries now, I was able to spot the identity of the killer in the first murder case of the book. This case centred on a man who is inside a locked vehicle at a traffic light, but a few minutes later is seen to have been strangled with piano wire. The car was being tailed by police and no one approached the car before they did. The victim was going to testify against the boss of a dodgy mortgage/loan company. The solution to this case is Edgar Allan Poe-like.
Like the previous book in the series that I reviewed a few weeks ago, Monk finds himself made redundant (again!) as a consultant to the local police force, due to the economy problems entailing severe cutbacks. However, Monk and Natalie cannot solve their financial woes in the same way and the situation becomes more problematic when Monk discovers he has become the victim of a Ponzi scheme. So instead of focusing on crime, the pair have to focus on starting various new jobs such as working in a supermarket, a clothes shop and a pizza restaurant. Naturally, Monk is adept at getting them fired. Monk’s lack of funds alters his relationship with Natalie, since he cannot no pay her. It is interesting to see how Monk’s diminished resources mean he cannot afford to have the world confirm to his precise ideals and arguably Natalie feels like she can show her annoyance with him more.
There is a more main murder case going on in the background of the novel and similar to many of the TV episodes the plot operates more like an inverted mystery. Identifying the culprit is not hard, like Monk you will know who “the guy” is, but figuring out how they did it is more challenging. Julie, Natalie’s daughter, is more present in this story, although she is now a very self-centred and obnoxious 18-year-old:
‘It occurred to me that teenagers are a lot like Monk. They think the whole world revolves around them, their troubles, and their needs.’
I don’t remember Julie being so annoying in the other books, nor the TV series, so I did wonder if this side to her character was ramped up to serve the plot, as she is an utter snob when her mum becomes a shop cashier. She only worries about what her friends will think if anyone sees her mum.
Looking back on the novel as a whole I would say this is more a story about Monk coping with new challenging circumstances, as the crime and mystery solving element felt smaller than usual.
Rating: 3.75/5
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