Let There Be Linda

“This book is completely messed up. In the best way possible. A book that just blows your mind. A book that the moment you finish, you gasp out loud. A book that gets you hook, line, and sinker. A black-comic thriller that’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that feels so familiar. Maybe the best one of the year.  

The way Let There Be Linda deals with serious issues through comedy is awesome. The story is mainly about a set of estranged brothers, Dan and Mike Miller. They couldn’t live more different lives. One is a con-man, and a washed-up talent agent. The other is an accountant that probably has skeletons in his closet. They are the first two in a group of lively characters that make this book so good. There’s the sadistic, but well dressed pawn shop owner dwarf and his giant partner in crime. the dentist that needs rehab in a big, big way, the comedian cop on the case, and the random girl who will hopefully one day use her “powers” to solve California’s drought issues. Just not in this book. 

Leder spends a good deal of time developing his characters, and they come to life quite literally before your eyes. And then they just keep getting better as the story goes along. The Miller brothers have a major-league problem: they owe some serious cash to some seriously wrong people. So for the most part, Let There Be Linda is sort of a survival story with an ending you never saw coming. An action packed, extremely fast paced adventure. 

Quick disclaimer: Let There Be Linda is rather graphic. Well, actually, incredibly graphic. But if you’re a fan of Rich Leder’s other dark comedies, you will not be disappointed. And if you haven’t read anything by him, what are you waiting for.”

“Let There Be Linda by Rich Leder begins with a poodle being thrown out of a window on an L.A. freeway. Brothers Mike and Dan Miller, one an almost-respectable accountant and one a completely crooked talent agent get embroiled in a caper with many angles: a missing $75,000, a brutal loan shark dwarf and his much bigger sidekick, a coke-addled dentist, and other denizens of the sweat-infused San Fernando Valley. Add to that a girl who can raise the dead and you have a novel that's part crime fiction, part satire, and the strangest supernatural story you've ever read. A wildly inventive and surprising novel from a comedic writer who has really outdone himself.

Having read Leder's Kate McCall Crime Caper series, which takes place in New York, the setting of the L.A. Valley is a perfect locale for Leder to up the notch of lunacy, making the eccentric characters in his other work seem buttoned up. There's no crazy like L.A. crazy, and it really lets Leder spread his comedic wings.

Why the novel is so effective is the lunacy is cumulative. If you read the first half of this book, you'll find a fairly straightforward crime novel. Sure, a girl is raising animals from the dead, but only a goldfish. More to the point, the caper involves stolen money and well-drawn but still recognizable low-lives. Leder is a master at making the absurd seem plausible, which is very important for comedy. Too crazy and it will come off as surrealism. By the time you're buried in this fever dream, the second half of the book takes on a strange reality as it descends into chaos.

Once all the disparate pieces come together, the novel coalesces into an intensely satisfying and surprising climax. Whatever predictability there was earlier on in the book is rendered moot. It's something like a comedic car chase: breakneck speed, and you never know what's coming around the corner. By the end, Leder is juggling a number of different characters, plot points, and moods, and he does it so expertly well. You'll laugh, you'll cringe, and your heart will pound all at once. Let There Be Linda is a hugely entertaining book from one of the more inventive crime writers to come along in a while.”

“Let There Be Linda is a runaway train: it gains momentum quickly and doesn’t stop until the inevitable crash. It may make you flinch, it may make you queasy, but it will absolutely make you laugh. The characters are completely crazy, but they are also entirely believable, which is an accomplishment that only a writer of Leder’s skill can manage. And the plot turns out to be a caper of epic proportions with so many twists and turns it’s impossible to get bored – or to see the next bit coming. There are a few grisly scenes, but this is black comedy, and it doesn’t fool around. When I laughed, I laughed out loud (although I’ll never admit which scenes made me do that.) The fact that the story resolves in such a satisfying way makes the ride all the more amazing.”

“If you like dark humor and you like to laugh out loud, then Let There Be Linda! Rich Leder has created yet another fabulously bizarre cast of characters and has placed them in a surreal adventure that grabs your attention from beginning to end. The book has so many twists, turns, and surprises it keeps you on edge, both horrified and hysterical, from page one—actually, from paragraph one. After all, what’s not to love about a clown named Paul the Pervert? If reality is getting you down, I highly recommend a leap into the wild world of Let There Be Linda.”

“Let There Be Linda is hard to describe briefly — it’s like Eoin Colfer’s Daniel McEvoy books with a touch of magic, Elmore Leonard trying to write like Neil Gaiman, or is it Gaiman trying to write like Leonard? Leder says he’s inspired by Monty Python here — I think he’s close, but it’s more A Fish Called Wanda than Python (at least the way it comes out, maybe not in his mind).

The first few paragraphs are likely enough to make you rethink picking up the book (not because of Leder’s craft, but the subject matter). It took a force of will for me not to move on to one of the other 20 or so books on my TBR. Thankfully — oh, so thankfully — it took very little time after that for me to get over it. Within a few pages, Leder had won me over. Also thankfully, the antics of the character in the opening paragraphs were really toned down when he appeared in the future (when not toned down, he was at least behind closed doors).

Danny and Mike Miller are brothers, as close as Cain and Abel. Danny’s the attractive, lecherous, irresponsible talent agent, who is always on the verge of success (even more so when he can’t get to the track or a phone to call a bookie). Mike’s his opposite, married, overweight, ultra-responsible, and an accountant enjoying success — and on the verge of a lot more. The one thing they have in common is that they’re devoted to their mother — Mike feels he has to be (and probably has some real affection for her), and Danny needs a place to live. On her deathbed, their mother makes Mike swear that he’ll watch out for Danny. She’s had a vision that something horrible is going to happen after her death, and she wants the two of them to get through it together. Which is good, because both of them are going to need all the help they can get.

This horrible thing — or series of horrible things — will involve a very small pawnbroker/loan shark and his very large companion; a drug-addicted dentist, his plastic-surgery addicted wife, and their sometimes dead dog; a detective who wants to be a stand-up comedian; there’s a guy who thinks he’s a zombie, a couple of sometimes dead mothers, and a few other odd characters.

Oh yeah, and the girl who can bring dead things back to life.

Most of these characters owe the diminutive loan shark more money than they’ll be able to repay in years, more of them are being investigated by the Comic Cop, some of them are looking to Danny to make them money, and the dentist to care for their teeth — and . . . honestly, tracing out the interconnectedness of all these characters and plotlines would require one of those giant corkboards and colored strings that used to be on every TV detective show. But stranger. And funnier.

Oh, yeah, and dead fish, dogs and people that stop being dead.

This is strange, bloody, a little violent, and impossible to explain in a way that does it justice. You just have to read the silly thing. It’s one of the most unpredictable novels I’ve read in ages. It ties up all the important things, and doesn’t leave anything unresolved. But Leder doesn’t bother to answer everything — you’ll spend a few days trying to suss a few things out. I enjoy it when authors do that — but only on the unessential (but interesting) points. It helps the experience last longer.

I’ve spent a week trying to figure out what to say about this one, and I’m not satisfied with what I came up with. I liked the book, I recommend it — it’s amusing; there’s heart to it; there are characters that are unique, yet familiar; a world that you’ve not come across before — and a strange sort of crime story. It’s just the right mix of black comedy and criminal activity and family. If this is what all of Leder’s books are like, I need to read more of them.”

“Colorful characters experience a week of hell while Los Angeles is baking in a heat wave where the temperature hovers around 107 degrees. The temperature isn’t the only disruption in LA though. Dead people and animals are coming back to life. Money disappears. A vicious giant shoves a cop’s face into a tank full of piranha.

Who are some of the characters that are the life of this story?

Danny and Mike Miller are brothers, but they don’t get along with each other. Their mom is about to die, and her dying wish is that Mike take care of Danny. Simple enough, right? There is never a good time for anyone to die, but their mother’s death comes at a very bad time.

Danny, a con-man who also runs a talent agency, owes a sadistic dwarf loan shark a large amount of money. And this dwarf’s best friend is an extremely loyal and rather vicious giant.

On an extremely hot day, a perverted pornographic clown with body odor and creepy makeup tries to get Danny to sign him on. After he leaves, very plain Jenny Stone comes in and claims she can breathe life back into dead things. Really?

Danny is skeptical that this girl can do what she says, and she leaves without a job. Before she leaves though, she breathes on his dead fern. And this is the beginning of those who were dead and gone being brought back to life. People will pay a lot of money to have their dead loved ones brought back, but is it really a smart thing to wake the dead?

Mike, Danny’s brother, is a mortuary accountant who feels uncomfortable around sick people. The sight of dead bodies makes him lose his lunch. Booted from his accounting firm the same day his mom dies, his income goes out the window. And he is being hunted by a crazy man who believes it is Mike’s fault that he lost all his money.

A coke-snorting dentist’s dog, Chachi, is thrown out of a car window by the vicious giant at the direction of the sadistic dwarf to whom the good doctor is way over his head in debt. And the dentist’s wife is driving him deeper into debt with her addiction to plastic surgery. The dentist pays Danny a lot of money to have Jenny bring Chachi back to life, but then the money disappears.

Mike and Danny have made a total mess out of their lives, and the only one who can help them is their mom, but she is dead. They need her to tell them what to do, so they retrieve her body and have Jenny breathe life back into her.

An LAPD detective, who is also a comedian, is investigating the death of Chachi, the poodle who was thrown out the car window. He never loses a chance to turn his investigations into jokes for his comedy routine while ignoring the law. When he sees life breathed into Chachi, he is convinced that his fortune has been made.

What could happen with this diverse cast of characters during a broiling LA summer when common sense leaves and tempers flare? This dark comedy horror thriller will have you laughing out loud at their antics.

Fans of Monty Python and Quentin Tarantino will love this character-driven book.”