Bad monkeys

In a holding cell in the psychiatric wing of a prison, a psychologist is interviewing inmate Jane Charlotte. She's been charged with homicide. Although she does not deny it, she weaves an outrageous story about the circumstances surrounding the murder. She claims to be working for a secret organization devoted to fighting evil with an array of fantastical weapons, including a gun that, depending on the setting, can induce a heart attack, a stroke, or a coma. Jane details her initial contact with the organization when she was a teenager, her lost years as a homeless drug addict, and her eventual work for the division dubbed Bad Monkeys, which targets and eliminates irredeemable persons. Ruff, whose first two novels attracted a cult following, especially in Europe, displays so much imaginative flair (similar in sensibility to George Saunders) and relays it all with such exuberance that readers will have a hard time tearing themselves away from the book--indeed, the more outlandish Jane's story grows, the faster they'll turn the pages. The fiendishly clever plot twists, involving a covert group fighting for evil, only add to the mind-bending experience. --Joanne Wilkinson Copyright 2007 Booklist

In this clever SF thriller from Ruff (Fool on the Hill), almost everyone is a bad monkey of some kind, but only Jane Charlotte is a self-confessed member of "The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons." Or is she? In a series of sessions with a psychotherapist in the Las Vegas County Jail "nut wing," Jane tells the story of her early life in San Francisco and her assimilation into the "Bad Monkeys," an organization devoted to fighting evil. Crazy or sane, Jane is still a murderer, whether she used a weapon like the NC gun, which kills someone using Natural Causes, or more prosaic weaponry. Still, nothing is quite what it seems as Jane's initial story of tracking a serial killer janitor comes under scrutiny and the initial facts about her brother, Phil, get turned on their head. At times the twists are enough to give the reader whiplash. Ruff's expert characterization of Jane and agile manipulation of layers of reality ground the novel and make it more than just a Philip K. Dick rip-off. (July 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Imprisoned in a nearly featureless room, Jane Charlotte is being interrogated by a man in a white lab coat. It seems she's killed somebody. How? And why? Her answer is a convoluted tale of a vast secret organization whose agents fight evil by keeping humanity under "ubiquitous surveillance" and selectively assassinating the "bad monkeys," people deemed irredeemably evil. Of course, such vast and secret organizations tend to have equally vast and secret nemeses. They also have to keep careful tabs on their own agents. Jane's not quite certain which side her captors are on, and it's an open question whether she's crazy or not. There are echoes here of the pervasive paranoia of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Walker Percy's unreliable jailhouse narrator in Lancelot, as well as the sardonic black humor of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, not to mention Max Barry's sly satires of the absurdities of bureaucratic organizations. Cult favorite Ruff's (Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy) scenario inevitably raises questions about the morality of secret and summary "justice," but the story moves along in a fast-paced, satirical style that never slows down or turns preachy. Jane's tangled tale, from her confused, youthful introduction to this complicated secret world to the final, catastrophic mission, will keep most readers guessing until the last page. Recommended for all public libraries.-Bradley A. Scott, Brighton Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A dreamlike novel of good and evil mind games. Bad girl Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder and is being interrogated by a doctor about her proclivity for offing bad guys, especially actual or accused child molesters. She claims to be a member of a secret organization whose job it is to engage in vigilante justice by killing evil people. No guilt, no accountability, no consequences. Until her arrest, Jane had been one of the most efficient killers in the organization and had both impressed and distressed her mentors by killing two evildoers rather than one in her probation period. (She was supposed to make a choice.) Ruff (Set This House in Order, 2003, etc.) structures his novel largely as a series of dialogues between doctor and "patient," though as Jane's obsessions become more intense and her rationalizations more acute, she engages in increasingly bizarre and paranoid monologues. In extended flashbacks, we learn of Jane's troubled past, of her dysfunctional mother and of her contentious relationship with her brother Phil, whom she used to terrorize with tales of gypsy child-robbers. Along the way, she links up with a creepy cast of characters who haunt her nightmarish life, including harlequins, clowns, a feisty homeless woman and the sociopathic owner of a railroad hobby shop. She eventually meets "bad Jane," who opines that "evil...is just so much cooler than even you know." This double works for The Force, a counter-organization dedicated to the destruction of the good. In a dizzying set of final reversals, we learn once again that nothing is as it seems, for the doctor and the "twin" Janes have their own duplicitous agendas. Despite the metaphysical trappings of Existential Big Themes, it's hard to care too deeply about the characters, who remain intellectual cardboard cutouts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

/*Starred Review*/ In a holding cell in the psychiatric wing of a prison, a psychologist is interviewing inmate Jane Charlotte. She's been charged with homicide. Although she does not deny it, she weaves an outrageous story about the circumstances surrounding the murder. She claims to be working for a secret organization devoted to fighting evil with an array of fantastical weapons, including a gun that, depending on the setting, can induce a heart attack, a stroke, or a coma. Jane details her initial contact with the organization when she was a teenager, her "lost years" as a homeless drug addict, and her eventual work for the division dubbed Bad Monkeys, which targets and eliminates "irredeemable persons." Ruff, whose first two novels attracted a cult following, especially in Europe, displays so much imaginative flair (similar in sensibility to George Saunders) and relays it all with such exuberance that readers will have a hard time tearing themselves away from the book--indeed, the more outlandish Jane's story grows, the faster they'll turn the pages. The fiendishly clever plot twists, involving a covert group fighting for evil, only add to the mind-bending experience. ((Reviewed May 1, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.

Imprisoned in a nearly featureless room, Jane Charlotte is being interrogated by a man in a white lab coat. It seems she's killed somebody. How? And why? Her answer is a convoluted tale of a vast secret organization whose agents fight evil by keeping humanity under "ubiquitous surveillance" and selectively assassinating the "bad monkeys," people deemed irredeemably evil. Of course, such vast and secret organizations tend to have equally vast and secret nemeses. They also have to keep careful tabs on their own agents. Jane's not quite certain which side her captors are on, and it's an open question whether she's crazy or not. There are echoes here of the pervasive paranoia of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Walker Percy's unreliable jailhouse narrator in Lancelot , as well as the sardonic black humor of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, not to mention Max Barry's sly satires of the absurdities of bureaucratic organizations. Cult favorite Ruff's (Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy ) scenario inevitably raises questions about the morality of secret and summary "justice," but the story moves along in a fast-paced, satirical style that never slows down or turns preachy. Jane's tangled tale, from her confused, youthful introduction to this complicated secret world to the final, catastrophic mission, will keep most readers guessing until the last page. Recommended for all public libraries.—Bradley A. Scott, Brighton Dist. Lib., MI

In this clever SF thriller from Ruff (Fool on the Hill ), almost everyone is a bad monkey of some kind, but only Jane Charlotte is a self-confessed member of "The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons." Or is she? In a series of sessions with a psychotherapist in the Las Vegas County Jail "nut wing," Jane tells the story of her early life in San Francisco and her assimilation into the "Bad Monkeys," an organization devoted to fighting evil. Crazy or sane, Jane is still a murderer, whether she used a weapon like the NC gun, which kills someone using Natural Causes, or more prosaic weaponry. Still, nothing is quite what it seems as Jane's initial story of tracking a serial killer janitor comes under scrutiny and the initial facts about her brother, Phil, get turned on their head. At times the twists are enough to give the reader whiplash. Ruff's expert characterization of Jane and agile manipulation of layers of reality ground the novel and make it more than just a Philip K. Dick rip-off. (July 24)