Catchee Monkey - Sean Cameron

   2014 (so sez Amazon, although my e-book says 2021); 183 pages.  Full Title: Catchee Monkey: Two Detectives, One Murder, No Clue.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Rex & Eddie Mysteries” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Satire; Murder Mystery; Humorous Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Rex and Eddie have just been fired.  Again.  This time they were working as mall cops when they got the axe.  Something about them trying to arrest legitimate shoppers.

 

    What kind of job should two former mall cops be looking for now?  More importantly, what kind of job can they get where they won’t be fired?  Well, how about becoming a two-man, self-employed Private Investigation team?  Not having a boss means no one can fire you, amiright?

 

    Fortuitously, a cheap, seedy office space in a cheap, seedy, mostly-empty strip mall has just opened up.  And Rex and Eddie have just discovered a flaw in their career plans.  Nobody is going to hire two PI’s whose combined job experience is zero.  Now where will they find their first case to investigate?

 

    Hey, how come that big ugly splotch on their office carpet looks like a bloodstain?

 

What’s To Like...

    The subtitle of Catchee Monkey—Two Detectives, One Murder, No Clue—gives a good idea of the book’s tone.  If you like duos such as Bill & Ted, Wayne & Garth, and Beavis & Butthead, you’ll enjoy this book.  Rex and Eddie schlep around town, learning how to be private investigators, running afoul of police detectives, and causing unknown bad guys to seek to do away with them.

 

    I liked the supporting characters, which include a drug-dealer with all sorts of great connections, a girlfriend who doesn’t mind dumping a beau if it means moving up in society, and a street beggar who can be counted on to lend flat broke sleuths some money.

 

    The book is written in British, not American, and I enjoyed learning new vocabulary and phrases from across the pond such as: chav, strop, hob, wheelie bin, Morris Minor, and ponce.  The name of one of Rex & Eddie’s favorite pubs, “The Jolly Codger”, made me chuckle, as did the malady “Tourette’s of the foot”.

 

    The book’s title refers to a strategy our heroes used in playing Laser Tag.  Rex and Eddie are in their 20s, and are laughed at by the teenaged Laser Tag regulars who see them as geezers.  I’ve only played Laser Tag once in my life, I was middle-aged, and I didn’t get the hang of how to maximize one’s score at all.

 

   There are a couple of great plot twists along the way to keep you on your toes.  They lead to an ending that is exciting, over-the-top, overly convenient, and with all the major plotlines tied up.  For this genre, those are all plusses.  Catchee Monkey is both a standalone story as well as the first novel in a 4-book series.  I doubt that reading the series in order is important.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.7/5 based on 363 ratings and 189 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.39/5 based on 376 ratings and 52 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Chav (n.) : a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behavior. (British slang)

Others: Hob (n.); Strop (n., British slang).

 

Excerpts...

    “This is well overdue, gentlemen.  You’re both finished.”

    “Great meeting, Chief.” Rex stood.

    “He doesn’t mean the meeting,” Eddie said.

    Rex settled back down with a puzzled expression.

    “You two are a pair of—”

    “Mavericks?” Rex said.

    “You both knocked over a fragile old lady.”

    Rex threw his hands up in the air.  “Uh, apprehended a suspect with many stolen items in her bag.”

    “She had receipts for everything.”

    “It’s a good alibi.  I’ll give her that.”  (loc. 184)

 

    “I thought you’d always wanted to do a stake-out.”

    “So did I, but this is rubbish.  I’m hungry.”

    “I told you to bring snacks.  Did you?”

    “No.  Did you?”

    Eddie pulled his lunchbox closer.  “For myself.”

    “I’m not sharing my cola then.”

    “I don’t drink cola.  It’s dehydrating.”

    Rex scrunched up his face.  “Don’t get started with that again.”

    “It’s true.  It’s science.”

    “It’s science,” Rex said in a caveman voice.  “How can liquid dehydrate you?  It’s liquid.”  (loc. 772)

 

Kindle Details…

    Catchee Monkey presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  Books 2 and 3 in the series go for the same price, but be aware that they are both less than 140 pages in length.  Book 4, The Third Banana, goes for $3.99 and is listed as being 314 pages long.

 

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey, remember?”  (loc. 763)

    There’s not much to complain about in Catchee Monkey.  Cussing is sparse, only five instances in the first 50% of the book, and those were mild ones: four “damns” and one “hell”.  I was impressed.

 

    There were a number of typos and grammar errors, but not to where I’d call it distracting.  The most flagrant was the repeated lack of commas when addressing someone in direct dialogue.  Others were things like head first/headfirst, smile/smiled, and my favorite: regime/regimen.

 

    That’s about it.  I suppose I could gripe about the book’s brevity – a mere 183 pages in my e-book version.  In fairness, the Amazon blurb calls this a “novella”, even though I think of novellas as being a maximum of 150 pages or so.

 

    For me, Catchee Monkey was a short, easy, delightfully entertaining read, with tons and tons of witty and funny dialogue.  Which was exactly what I was looking for.

 

    7½ Stars.  One thing to note.  Unlike the duos cited earlier in this review, at this point Rex and Eddie are not bosom buddies.  Both have traits that irritate the other, but they ignore these for the sake of solving the case and thereby earning some cash.  I thought that was kind of neat.