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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780060590284
ISBN: 0060590289
Label: HarperCollins
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 405
Publication Date: April 01, 2007
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: March 27, 2007
Studio: HarperCollins
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.
It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This book was a really good read! It is the first I've read by this author, and you can bet I'll be buying his other books! His sense of humor is so exquisitely sharp!
Rating: -
This book was hilarious, well written, and probably one of the best books I have read this year. The story follows Charlie Asher, a "beta male," in the years following the death of his wife and birth of his daughter. Although he is a seemingly unlikely candidate, he has been chosen as a Death Merchant, to collect individual's soul vessels after they die so their souls can travel to another body.Luckily, he has his sister Jane, employees Lily and Ray, fellow Death Merchant Minty Fresh, and the cop Alphonse Rivera helping him (and sometimes hindering him) in unlikely ways. To top it off, his young daughter Sophie seems to have found a couple of hellhounds with a taste for dish soap to keep her company. Pretty handy since Charlie and Sophie have been targeted for elimination by the Morrigans aka Sewer Harpies.
When I read the synopsis for this book, I thought that it sounded like an unlikely subject for humor. Well, within the first three pages I was laughing so loud that I was embarrassed that my neighbors might hear me through the walls. Charlie is one of those characters that you would love if he were a real person, but you would also want to smack him for being so irritating because he is paranoid about everything. It turns out he has a good reason for his paranoia.
This book was completely unpredictable, random, snarky, offensive, and off the wall - just the type of humor I like. The plot was well-paced and surprisingly credible - there were only a few things that really seemed unlikely, but considering everything in the book was extremely bizarre, I was able to suspend disbelief. I had mixed feelings about the ending, but all in all it was an excellent book that I highly recommend.
Rating: -
I've long been a fan of Christopher Moore. He writes in a quick, dry style that manages to pull off being absurd at the same time as allowing you to believe the characters.
While a lot of people are introduced to Moore by "Bloodsucking Fiends" or "You Suck!", A Dirty Job is, to me, his signature work.
Charlie Asher, our protagonist is described by the author as a "Beta Male" a neurotic character full of self doubt and fear of the world. He's reluctantly drawn into a world which presents him a portion of a significant power.. being a dealer in the soul market.
Moore manages to so effectively play the worries of a new father against the backdrop of zaniness that the novel rotates between being surprisingly touching and laugh out loud funny. Sure, that's said to often and is merely an expression, but I admit, more then once I turned to my wife and said "I cannot wait for you to read this book just to get to..."
The book features such crisp volumes of dialog that it's a natural for an audiobook, and here again, it doesn't fail. Hearing "A Dirty Job" read aloud, whether it's you doing it or listening to the audio book is a great follow up once you've read the book.
Moore's development of even secondary characters continues to grow the world he has built with Bloodsucking Fiends/You Suck.
If you're new to Christopher Moore, and you haven't read anything, this isn't a bad place to start. Read this and then go back for others in the same setting. This book does a great job of fleshing out the real environment of all those other characters.
And any book that is this good, and this quick, of a read deserves the money.
Rating: -
This book was chosen by my book club and we all loved it. I, personally, loved the author's creativity and humor. I also loved his imagery. At the end of his book, I went to the website with pictures of the artwork that had inspired his squirrel people and found that my mental image was almost spot on.
Rating:  -
Got the book with in a few days of my order. Everybody was happy.
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