Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

I like the odd ghost story, I like the odd bit of science fiction, and I definitely like the odd bit of sleuth and whodunit novel. Therefore, I rather loved Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Written by Douglas Adams, the brilliant mind that brought us The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this book has to be one of the freshest, funniest, and most intriguing novels possibly of all time. Netflix have made a series based on the character and the premise so it’s definitely got to be doing something right. 

The book has a number of beginnings and chronicles a series of strange events that do end up interconnecting, even though you may not see it until Dirk, like Sherlock Holmes, points them out at the end. The main story focuses on the roadside murder of a millionaire computer company founder and special detective Dirk Gently using his holistic methods that explore the interconnectedness of everything to solve the case. With the reluctant help of a former college friend and employee of the deceased, Dirk explores every impossible clue in a race against the clock to find the murderer and save all humanity. 

Whilst Dirk Gently adopts a recognizable and humorous tone in the way it is written, there are much larger and darker things underlying the text. Adams returns to exploring questions of history, humanity, life, the universe, and everything and fuses the genres of ghost story, science fiction, and pulp fiction detective story together to do so. A multitude of complex themes are dredged up and thrown at you including time travel and its effects on British telephones, hypnotism, Bach music, computer jargon, and missing cats. 

But while all this can become convoluted and difficult to digest, the sharp and humorous tone of the book makes it that little bit more accessible and works as a wonderful balm that prevents the reader from getting too overwhelmed and shutting down. 

Of course, it also helps in describing such an absurd character as Dirk Gently. A funny and intelligent equivalent to the crazy cat lady or village witch, Dirk is a character that no reader can honestly identify with, but his eccentricities and the way that everyone else in the book reacts to them is what allows readers to form attachments. As both characters and readers gawp and gape at the absurd things that come out of Dirk’s mouth, there is created a relationship and readers are completely immersed in the world of the book because they know just as much as the rest of the characters do; a bit like The Hangover, if you want a filmic example. 

While we are given omniscient insight into what’s happening in other parts of the book’s world, there is not that much of a distance between characters and readers when it comes to understanding this detective and how he can make sense out of the seemingly meaningless and totally unconnected events of the novel. 

Unlike a Sherlock Holmes novel, you give up your endeavors to decipher the clues and come to a conclusion before Dirk pretty early on as electric monks, conjuring tricks, and horses in bathrooms just render the calculating part of your brain comatose. 

It all sounds a bit heavy and weird and it is precisely that, but if you don’t mind a bit of quirky literature, then I would definitely recommend Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. 

Author: Douglas Adams 

Published: Simon & Schuster (first U.S. edition), 1987