BOOK REVIEW: Noir by Christopher Moore

Published 9:30 am Saturday, May 12, 2018

Fans have come to expect the unexpected from author Christopher Moore.

“Lamb” is a retelling of the biblical Gospel by Biff, a childhood friend of Jesus.

“Fool” is a retelling of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” from the perspective of the jester.

“Sacre Bleu” is a strange mystery involving magical paint and the French Impressionists.

These are just a few titles by Christopher Moore.

The constant amidst these seemingly different genres is Moore’s irreverent, even bawdy, sense of humor, and willingness to add any number of quirks into any story.

All of which is true for Moore’s latest novel, “Noir.”

Set in post-World War II era San Francisco, readers meet Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin, a bartender whose foot injury kept him out of the war. One night, the beautiful bombshell Stilton walks into Sammy’s bar and he falls in love with the woman he calls the Cheese.

Meanwhile, Sammy’s boss wants him to gather innocent-looking young women for a party thrown by a general wishing to gain members to an elite club. The general commands the Roswell, N.M., Air Force base. The general decides instead of girls, perhaps the elite club will make him a member if he shows off an alien who crashed near his base.

Sammy, the Cheese and their quirky pals become involved as federal agents work to recover the alien and silence anyone who knows about the ET.

Sammy narrates a portion of the book in a Raymond Chandler-style patter punctuated with Moore’s sense of humor. Luckily, other portions of the book have a different narrator whose identity isn’t revealed until about two-thirds of the way through the novel – it is an odd choice for narrator even by the standards of a Christopher Moore book.

“Noir” is a fun romp. Readers with delicate sensitivities may want to avoid “Noir,” or any other Chris Moore book for that matter.

He’s not for everyone but for those who love him, “Noir” is a must-have addition.