Waiting for Godalming reports the greatest case of private eye Lazlo Woodbine, hired to investigate God's murder and the suspicious fact that Earth was inherited not by the meek but by God's other son Colin--edited out of the Bible when Jesus got full artistic control. Woodbine is strong on gunplay, dark alleys, rooftop confrontations and talking bizarre drivel in bars, but one worries about the Holy Guardian Sprout called Barry living inside his head.

Meanwhile, light-fingered Icarus Smith discovers the "Red Head" reality pills that reveal the disguised demons among us for the awful, scaly, insect-mouthed horrors that they are. Meanwhile, Prof. Bruce Partington's "spectremeter" device raises ghosts but can't make them go away again. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists will shiver to the dread Ministry of Serendipity hidden under Mornington Crescent station, and its awful uses for barbers' chairs.

As Rankin's anarchic storylines go, this is unusually sober and logical. There's a flood of running gags, self-referential japes, author interjections, allusions to a million Sherlock Holmes titles, and deranged one-liners like this architectural description of Wisteria Lodge:

To the original Georgian pile had been added a Victorian bubo, an Edwardian boil and a nineteen-thirties cyst.

Full of inspired silliness throughout, this is Rankin in good form. --David Langford