Book Review: Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

You have to be careful when you invite Old Man Coyote over for a visit - you can never be sure what that one will get up to. Of course he's one tricky fellow, which is something you can never forget, but he's also one crazy dude as well and can make your life twenty different kinds of bad news if you're not careful.

Usually a Coyote tale is lots of trouble for those involved in them, especially at the start. When Coyote chases his tail he stirs up a person's life like he's created a little tornado that picks up all the pieces and throws them around like trailers in a trailer park. When he's done chasing that tail he sits there and smiles his big idiot grin like he's done something real special, like he's done the person who the tale is about a real favour.

Now putting an Old Man Coyote tale in the hands of a tricky fellow like Christopher Moore is just asking for a whole bunch of messy circumstances. Christopher Moore has more than a little bit of the contrary nature in him to begin with without him messing around with that Coyote fellow.

Oh sure he looks innocent enough, but he's written all sorts of books about death, religion, cannibalism, sex, vampires and necrophilia. And that was only one book... well, maybe two. But strange things happen in his books, Things usually turn out okay for the people in the books at the end, but there's usually a lot of weirdness before it's all over with.

Coyote Blue is one of those sorts of tales, and with Coyote himself walking through the pages you just know it's going to be even stranger than is normal — if you can even use the word normal for describing a Christopher Moore book — and you're in for a wild ride. Of course not as wild as the guy who Coyote's hitched his little red wagon to.

On the surface Sam Hunter looks like he's got it made. He's in his mid-thirties, makes a fortune, drives a Mercedes, lives in an exclusive condo in one of San Francisco's classiest neighbourhoods. He's an insurance salesman who not only sells every policy he sets out to sell, but owns a chunk of the company as well.

He's also a shell, great to look at on the outside but completely empty on the inside. He's also not really Sam Hunter, but Samuel Hunts Alone from the Montana Crow Indian reservation. At fifteen he pushed a Bureau of Indian Affairs' cop off a bridge and had to leave home, change his name and cut himself off from what little family he used to have.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the recently published What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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