Alison's Starting to Happen

This book is fucking bonkers.

I liked it a lot.

Alison starts working for a private detective agency after using them to spy on her own cheating husband. She does a decent job, mainly divorce work, but it is when she agrees to help her friend locate an abandoned baby (any abandoned baby, she wants to give it to her mum) as well as investigating some dodgy animal experiment company, that things really start to hot up.

With a cast that includes a clairvoyant postman who pops strange messages through her door, a downstairs neighbour who is madly in love with her, a boss called Ella Fitzgerald and a giant beast which is a cross between a sheep and a pig, this is not your ordinary detective story.

This is not your ordinary anything story.

It reminded me in places of Caroline Smailes (which is an odd coincidence, as you will discover in a day or two) and also of a weird book called Dreamhouse by Alison Habens which is a bit of a lost classic.

As with most peculiar novels, you do have to suspend your disbelief a bit and be prepared for a somewhat convoluted plot, but I found myself enjoying this so much that I would forgive it anything.

Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith was originally published in 1999 but has recently been reissued by Amazon Encore, an imprint of the internet giant which looks for 'lost classics' and brings them back into print.

Comments

[Darren Craske]

Mr P, this book arrived on my doormat yesterday on your previous recommendation and i'm looking forward to it a lot.

[Rachel Green]

sounds like one worth getting. Thanks.

[Helen Smith]

Thanks for the fantastic review. It's not to everyone's taste but I'm really proud of it. It makes me so happy when people enjoy it. Thanks for reading it, Scott.

Darren (and Rachel if you get the book) I hope you enjoy it, too. Thanks for taking a chance on it, anyway.

[yvonne grace]

i am definitely going to read this - love the pun title and the book jacket before i go any further! also really like Helen Smith's writing anyway - so am bound to enjoy....great review scott

[Darren Craske]

Started reading this yesterday and am well into it, just my cup of tea. I can see the comparisons to Ms Smailes for sure, the ability to focus on everyday thoughts and observations and make them sound fresh and new and yet totally relatable.
I suspect that this will fare much better with the newer cover. I have the pastelly blue one and its not representative at all of the goldmine within.