Don Crouch Reviews: The Wheel of Doll: A Novel by Jonathan Ames

 

THE WHEEL OF DOLL

Mullholland

 

 

Happy Doll is a hot mess.

 

As we encounter him in this, the second novel in the series from Jonathan Ames, best known for the late, lamented HBO series Bored To Death, he’s barely recovered from the events in his “origin story”, A Man Named Doll. And trust me, there’s a LOT to recover from.

 

He’s lost his PI ticket, and is now billing himself as a Security Consultant, while basically doing the same stuff as before, when in walks Mary DeAngelo, who wants to hire Doll to find her mother. Mom has been missing awhile, but she thinks she’s in the Olympia, WA area. After some more background, Mary informs Happy that her mother is Ines Candle, who is, of course, an old flame of Happy’s. His last flame. She is a houseless addict, and Mary wants Happy to try and bring her home. Or so she says...

 

Happy takes the case, and after a vetting dinner with Mary’s husband, is off to Olympia. What follows is a drug-soaked odyssey through the homeless culture in the NW. Happy’s new-found interest in the Buddhist lifestyle is challenged to say the least, as a variety of dangerous encounters leave him within screaming distance of death’s door a couple of times. Regardless of his freshly-inspired devotion to preserving life, the bodies stack up.

 

Ames creates a sympathy of a sort for Happy Doll, and we worry for him as he crashes his way around the case. There are requisite shady characters introduced, and often dispatched, and by the time we get to Ames' thrilling and cinematic conclusion, we are fully bought in to Happy Doll’s world, his place in it, and his desire to live a more meaningful life.

 

Ames finds comedy in awful situations, and that’s a big part of the fun of The Wheel Of Doll. Recommended for PI enthusiasts, and those who enjoy the hero getting tossed around like a rag doll!

Don Crouch ©2023