Waiting For Godalming by Robert Rankin
Hardback £16.99
Published by Doubleday, 12th of October 2000
Buy from Amazon

If you wanted to get all analytical with this excellent book, you could say that it is all about family life; both the good and bad sides. Of course, as this is a Robert Rankin book, there are far more important things to deal with.

God is dead, gunned down in a dark alley behind a night club. Justice was quick in coming, as the assassins were in turn shot and killed, in a very professional way, by the world's greatest detective. Yes folks, he's back.

Lazlo Woodbine.

Some folks simply call him 'Laz'.

Hired by God's wife to find her husband (who looks like Richard E. Grant, of course), Lazlo Woodbine quickly finds himself putting aside all other cases (even the one actually about a case; a briefcase, in fact) to deal with The Big One. With the assistance of Barry, his Holy Guardian Sprout (that lives in his head), Lazlo must do battle with the Ministry of Serendipity, Mr. Cormerant, Colin Godalming (the only one of God's children born within wedlock), and many others.

In the meantime, Icarus Smith, the one and only relocator in the world, is looking for a drug that lets you see things as they really are. He found out about it on a tape he listened to. He found the tape in a certain briefcase he had relocated. Quickly out of his depth, Icarus must rely on help from his barking mad brother.

The one who thinks he's the world's greatest detective.

Oh yeah, and there's a real estate deal hanging in the balance that is so devastating in its implications that Icarus had better hope that his brother keeps on thinking he's the world's greatest detective, coz right now, the world really needs Lazlo Woodbine.

Whom some call 'Laz'.

So funny, you may laugh yourself into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

Yes siree.

By golly.

9 out of 10

Review by Iain Lowson.