Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

by

Hardcover

English language

Published Jan. 14, 1990 by Random House Value Publishing.

ISBN:
978-0-517-02337-2
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (1 review)

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous detective novel by English writer Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by the author on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".

The book was followed by a sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. The only recurring major characters are the eponymous Dirk Gently, his secretary Janice Pearce and Sergeant Gilks. Adams also began work on another novel, The Salmon of Doubt, with the intention of publishing it as the third book in the series, but died before completing it.

25 editions

reviewed Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently, #1)

I understand why people rate it with 3 stars

5 stars

Let me get it straight: the ending is very Adamsian. I have an unsubstantiated feeling (one could say "a belief") that Douglas Adams never cared much about the endings.

The reason I'm giving it my favorite 4.5 is the pure joy of Adams capturing so many concepts from what is by now computer science folklore, but at the time of writing the book was on the forefront of software engineering. The book is written in 1987, mind you.

And perhaps that's another reason many gave it three stars. Adams, not unlike his character, really liked to talk about computers in detail.

Subjects

  • Non-Classifiable
  • Sale Books
  • Fantastic fiction
  • Fantasy fiction
  • Nonfiction - General
  • Detective and mystery stories