Publisher's Synopsis
Readers beware! Chop is a metaphysical whodunit. The book is a rather unusual foray into notions of loss and butchery. It is another story airing from the decay of a brain that is affected by organic damage caused by vascular dementia. It establishes itself in a place where nothing is quite as it seems because the mind of the author is simply not working as well as it once used to.This tale is set in the affluent environs of sunny Torquay, the Queen of the English Riviera. It finds itself placed in a time somewhere after the outbreak of the Great War. There is an afternoon tea party with a few select guests mingling in a well mannered way. Those attending include a notion of Agatha Christie alongside a broad assortment of other polite individuals.They have gathered pleasantly together in a grand house; yet not all is what it seems! After the event there is a murder of the "foulest" variety and this tale explains how Little Kit seeks to capture evidence that will allow us all to identify the culprit by the end of the book.As with all the works of Little Kit there is the problem of dementia that impacts on the presentation of the facts of the case. Sometimes the author gets a little distracted and we take an occasional sideways diversion through history, science, philosophy and an occasional notion of reality. Chop takes us on a journey to India where the victim used to operate as a civil engineer before coming back to retire in England with his wheelchair bound wife. We are introduced to a number of different characters who might be suspected of playing some part in the homicide. For those of you who are unaware of his previous writing Little Kit is something of a detective. He is also an ancient soul as well as a deranged and dying old man whose spirit has been possessed by a small black and white cat. This difficult combination does cause the occasional hiccup in proceedings, as you might imagine.Fortunately Little Kit has lots of transferable skills and one of these is astral travel. So it is really quite easy for him to pop back in time and space to find out more information on all the suspects in the frame for this murder.As always Little Kit tends to get himself a bit bogged down in obscure matters that interest him. He always gets bothered by "experts" in religion and science who seem to have great knowledge and yet might be providing us with false information.Of course Chop is not always easy to read. No book dealing with vascular dementia will ever be that. However it is quite a fast paced romp through a murder enquiry and the author hopes that you will find some bits of it as interesting as he has done, As Little Kit often says, "the trouble with losing your mind is that you never know who is going to find it!"At the very end the author is able to bring his investigation to some kind of conclusion. Like most mysteries than answer is there all the time staring you in the face, but we are all blind and stupid. Chop is just another book about being human and about human beings.