Friday (er, Saturday) Flashback: Rec. #162: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Douglas Adams is best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in all its wonderful incarnations, but that is not all he created! He also left us with a private detective named Dirk Gently, who approaches his cases from a belief in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things."

Comparable to: Remember the husband-and-wife team of existential detectives in the movie I Heart Huckabees? It's a little like that. Except Douglas Adams never got into a screaming match with Lily Tomlin, not even once. And Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has more murder. And time travel. And joyous farce. And literary allusions. And the pivotal (dis)appearance of a cat. OK, maybe it's actually more like To Say Nothing of the Dog.

Representative quote: "Richard had run into Dirk from time to time and had usually been greeted with that kind of guarded half smile that wants to know if you think it owes you money before it blossoms into one that hopes you will lend it some."

You might not like it if: You get impatient waiting for the introduction of the eponymous detective agency (nearly halfway through the book).

How to get it: The book is in print, and Adams also wrote one and a half sequels: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and The Salmon of Doubt (unfinished). I know that there is a new BBC4 adaptation of Dirk Gently, but I have not yet seen it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: I previously recommended two other works by Douglas Adams: The Salmon of Doubt (Rec. #4) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Rec. #42). In many ways, Dirk Gently is similar to Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog (Rec. #100). And I should also mention that in the BBC4 adaption mentioned above, Dirk Gently is played by Stephen Mangan, from Green Wing (Rec. #110).