Drop Dead, My Lovely

by Ellis Weiner

A one-time mild-mannered bookstore clerk transformed into a hard-boiled private detective thanks to a head injury, Pete Ingalls decides to open up his own detective agency, taking Raymond Chandler as his model, and finds himself on the trail of a variety of shady characters, dealing with damsels in distress, and tracking a killer, with only his delusion to sustain him. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the funniest books I've read in a while. After a knock on the head, book store clerk Pete Ingalls wakes up in the hospital and believes he's an old-fashioned private investigator—a gumshoe, a flatfoot, a dick, a shamus. He gets an office and makes a business card, and next thing you know he's in business and taking cases. And cases always begin when a dame in trouble walks through the door...

[Asparagoose · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insufferable main character, head trauma not withstanding. The way the doctors and everyone who knew him before accident just left him alone was completely unbelievable. The author was trying way too hard to be funny, but it just. . . wasn't. It was literally painful to read at times. I needed this book for a category on a reading challenge or else I would not have finished.

[Tina Grile · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky but fun to read

[Martha Little · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea. Raunchy sex and awful language but I read it to the end because I’m not a quitter.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious private detective spoof.

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

To his great credit, Weiner avoids crude parody. He has a great ear for the tough-guy wisecracks, cynical observations, and bemused inner monologues from the classics; he manages to make them both amusing to the reader and respectful to their source. Neat trick.

[Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is well written and cleverly humurous. A bookstore employee gets bonked on the head and gets amnesia. As a result the employee believes he is a private eye from the Mickey Spilane school of p.i.s. The P.I. gets a couple of clients and goes out to solve a couple of mysteries. Along the way he hires a receptionist who is the real brains.

[Mark Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pete Ingalls wakes up in the hospital certain he's a great PI, so he sets up a new office. But will he be in over his head when he gets two clients? A spoof on the classic PI stories of old, and an entertaining mystery to boot.

Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.

[Mary MacKintosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fun! Pete is a p.i., a dick, a man obsessed with the Code who dresses like a detective from the 40s. Fortunately his part-time secretary is smart even if she has a potty mouth. Pete solves crimes and saves damsels in distress. I have a feeling he will be back in a sequel.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ellis Weiner is a very, very funny man, and this, the first of his series of comedy noir novels, is inspirational in its deft blend of complex detective fiction and outright silliness.

[Mitzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read.