Review: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first time I’ve read this book. Until now I’d only read The Hitchhiker’s Guide series. It definitely has a different tone to it while still being a very British and funny book at its core. That might have to do with the fact that it was originally an unused Dr Who script or it might just be that Mr Adams was writing in a different universe with a different tone. There’s definitely something very modern in a sort of 80s or 90s way about this book - the way it talks about computers and algorithms that we just don’t talk about nowadays. We take PCs for granted, but Adams, like Richard, was a computer geek when that was still a pretty new thing.

The plot takes a while to gel together as there are about 4 different plots going in the beginning that are tied together in a way that only Dirk can eventually figure out. Even Dirk Gently, for whom the book is named, is not really a main character and doesn’t appear for quite some time. This is one of those books where it’s REALLY hard to have a good synopsis that doesn’t give something away. Let’s see what I can do:

Richard, our main character, ends up suspected in the murder of his boss. He finds his old college buddy who’s currently going under the name of Dirk Gently and has recently started an investigative agency.

That’s about all you can say because everything else is about how all the plots tie together in a way that makes Dirk’s investigation quite unique. If you like British humor and detective/mystery stories, you owe it to yourself to see exactly what I’m talking about.

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