The reclusive genius is back with another great novel. His latest, “Inherent Vice,” is slim and not as complex as his behemouth novels like “Gravity’s Rainow” and “Against the Day.” It is much more reminiscent of his first novel, “The Crying of Lot 49.”
Doc Sportello is a hippie private eye who is helping his ex-girlfriend, Shasta, protect her millionaire real estate developer boyfriend Micky from his scheming wife and her lover. But soon after, Shasta and her boyfriend disappear. So bumbling, pothead detective Doc must hunt him down. It’s Los Angeles in the 1970s and Doc hangs out at a beach near the airport where he must confront bikers, neo-Nazis, surf rockers, sex club workers, fellow hippies and nefarious dentists. Then there is the matter of the Golden Fang which is either a yacht involved in the transporting of drugs, a criminal organization of dentists who sell drugs (on the side, of course) in an office that is in the shape of a giant tooth, or a conspicuous private hospital for the mentally ill. All the while, Doc is on the run from a hippie hating cop named Bigfoot.
This a great book that blends the intrique of a hard boiled crime novel and hilarity of the Big Lebowski.
