Anonymous Rex: A Detective Story

by Eric Garcia

Book Overview

A People Beach Book of the Week "Very funny." - Dave Barry "Startling and clever...hilarious and chilling." - T.C. Boyle "All the elements of a cult classic." - Entertainment Weekly "Great." - Orlando... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375503269
• ISBN13: 9780375503269
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Villard Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A fully realized alternate world

The hero of "Anonymous Rex," the novel by Eric Garcia, is a private investigator named Vincent Rubio. But there's a twist to this detective story. Vincent is a dinosaur--a raptor, to be specific. He lives in a world in which dinosaurs never went extinct--instead, they evolved into human-sized intelligent beings. The dinos live intermingled in the human population, wearing ingenious prosthetic disguises that allow them to masquerade as humans.Vincent is contracted to investigate a suspicious fire, and this leads him into a twisted web of murder, deceit, sex, and weird science. Garcia has taken a great concept and used it to create a fun, exciting story. "Anonymous" has something in common with narratives like the Harry Potter saga, which similarly postulates a "hidden" world which coexists with our mundane human world. Despite this common theme, however, Garcia's book is fresh and unique.Garcia creates compelling characters and throws in some intriguing twists. His writing is clever and witty, and he fleshes out this bizarre concept in a rich and satisfying way. Along the way he tackles some "real world" issues such as drug abuse, forbidden sex, social control, and personal identity. This is a wild and wondrous story that leaves me eager for a sequel.

Surprisingly good

This is a surprisingly good compulsivly readable novel. Even though the structure of the novel at times seems to be a bit weak the world of Dono's is so well built and so fun to read that it is worth it for just a peek at this original alternater reality.

A Dino-noir classic...

Vincent Rubio is a down on his luck Los Angeles detetctive. Creditors are knocking on his door, he's mourning the death of his beloved partner and fighting an addiction to basil...Vincent Rubio is a velociraptor disguised as a human. I have to admit when I saw this book in my local bookstore I was both intrigued and skeptical. A secret society of dinosaurs living among humans?!? C'mon. But Eric Garcia pulls this unique concept off convincingly with wit, charm and sly humor, at the same time giving us a highly original, geniune detective story that you won't be able to put down!!

YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!

This book is hilarious, I loved the concept of dinosaurs guised up as humans! It's a strange combination but it works. I was addicted from beginning to end, good plot, great concept and it is incredibly humourously told. All I can say is...I WANT MORE! Look out for his upcoming book Casual Rex. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK, especially if you like detective books with imagination.

So much for extinction

Cross an apex predator with Sam Spade, spend a lot of evolutionary time reading Raymond Chandler and you have a serviceable approximation of Vincent Rubio, the hero and protagonist of this story.But that's just a hint of the fun to come. There's action, sleuthing, wise-cracking, science, sleaze and high society along with a clever plot and our hero moves deftly through it with a lot of grace for a guy with a tail and wearing a girdle.The pre-quel, 'Casual Rex' is in the works, by the way.