Robert “Bob” James

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Created by John Goldbach
(1978–)

“A lot remains unknown. Things change when you look at them.”
— Robert clues us in…

Here we go again…

ROBERT “BOB” JAMES is a private eye. A loner with cynical streak that naturally hides a romantic streak. He thinks too much; he drinks too much. He cracks wise, as expected, and when the phone rings in the middle of the night, he invariably answers, and then goes out to set the world right.

Which is how The Devil and the Detective (2013) begins. The phone rings and it’s a woman, Elaine Adams, who’s just discovered her older husband dead with a knife in his chest in their living room. The police are on their way, but her lawyer has suggested she hire a private detective.

And so it goes…

Elaine is, of course, not just young but beautiful, and Robert finds himself falling for her almost instantly–even though she may be the one who killed her husband. Nonetheless, he works the case, when he isn’t busy thinking lofty thoughts, musing on various matters and exchanging lofty philosophical wisecracks with Darren, a chatty flower delivery man who eventually aids the detective in his investigation. Standard fare, really.

Except, not quite. Once more we’re diving into the Metaverse, with a book arguably too smart and literary (and definitely too self-conscious) for its own good. And so we follow Robert, who of course delivers this self-conscious post-modern tale in more-or-less hard-boiled patter, as he smokes, drinks and broods about the sorry state of the world, more interested it seems in musing about his job than in actually doing it.

All the usual tropes are trotted out: the seductive widow/femme fatale, the possibly corrupt cops, the conveniently missing witnesses (or are they suspects?), the sleazy lawyers, the big evil corporation, and all the dirty secrets and lies you’d expect, checked off one by one.

Yet, for all the satiric pokes, jokes and jabs, the story itself seems too generic (Bob James? Elaine Adams?) to fully make its own case. Like, it all takes place in Montreal, I think, although except for a few bits of unexplained French dialogue and the fact that the author himself is from Montreal you’d never know it, and the plot unfolds like it doesn’t really matter, with frequent breaks for Robert to ponder things. How much we’re supposed to laugh is possibly the biggest mystery here.

Just keep telling yourself this short novel isn’t a really book about about a private eye (you just think it is), but a book about books about private eyes. It’s one of those clever little books that may be easier to admire than to enjoy.

How much you’ll like it depends on a) whether you get the joke and b) your tolerance for metafiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Goldbach is a Montreal writer. He’s the author of The Devil and the Detective (his first novel), and the short story collections Selected Blackouts and It Is an Honest Ghost.

UNDER OATH

  • “Familiarity can be a launch pad for invention, or at least for the exhilaration of shaking the familiar back to life. The Devil and the Detective mostly just feels very, very familiar, even when it’s being irreverent.
    —  José Teodoro (National Post)
  • “”John Goldbach’s first novel is an out-and-out romp, though a cerebral and extremely clever one … Goldbach’s prose is polished and inventive, and the book is at once a clever satire and satisfying bit of strangeness… (his)  touch is light and his narrative momentum is fierce.’
    — Globe and Mail
  • “Told in a sort of punch-drunk, slapstick stream that melds dreams, misperception and dialogue, the story has undeniable momentum, even as it veers persistently and amusingly off course. [Four stars]’
    — Timeout Chicago
  • “… the plot is hardly the point here. Goldbach acknowledges his priorities with his twin epigraphs: the first from French Revolutionary politician and orator Antoine Barnave, the second from the Buster Keaton silent film Sherlock Jr. The conflation of high and low culture permeates the book, which reads as if Samuel Beckett had written The Maltese Falcon.. .Goldbach is interested in self-consciously playing with genre conventions rather than ensuring his plot is tightly calibrated. The extent to which readers enjoy the results will depend upon whether they find this approach innovative or merely self-indulgent.
    — Quill & Quire
  • “The world has hitherto been divided into plotters who wrote in shoddy sentences and linguistic aesthetes who wrote beautiful sentences but couldn’t make anything happen on the page, no plot. Goldbach manages to do both – a thrilling plot and beautiful language. He has raised the bar for both murder mysteries and literary writing.”
    — Josip Novakovich

NOVELS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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