Another wry and funny outing with John Scalzi.  This time we're on hand to meet Charlie Fitzer, a currently unemployed substitute teacher.  He used to be a journalist but can't find the motivation to go find work…any work.  He doesn't have a wife anymore; just an orange cat named Hera.  He does have possibly misguided intentions of rescuing an iconic neighborhood bar and being a pub owner.  Trouble is, he has no experience and no assets; he does have, however, the moxie to go ask a bank anyway.  No surprise they turned him down.  He lives in his father's house which is owned by his father's trust.  He's allowed to live there as long as he wants but his step-siblings are pressuring him to sell.  So, yeah, not much of a life here.  That all changes, of course, when a woman appears on his porch with somewhat unwelcome news: his billionaire uncle, whom he hasn't seen since he was a child, has died and left him with…well, everything.

This would have been intimidating even if his uncle was a normal sort of billionaire.  What Charlie would never have imagined is that his uncle was a villain who might have been into world domination.  His first introduction to that side of life was made at his uncle's funeral where several black-suited tough guys showed up with the express intent of verifying Uncle Jake's demise.  Stabbing, if necessary.  Apparently, he'd faked it before.

After a whirlwind tour of his uncle's volcanic island lair, Charlie knows for certain that he's in over his head.  It was bad enough to learn that his cat owns more property than he does and that she communicates through a computer.  It was much worse to discover that his uncle also tinkered with the genetics of dolphins and before he knew what was happening, he was neckdeep in union talks with a group of foul-mouthed and foul-tempered dolphins. 

The heat gets turned up when Charlie learns there is a consortium of villainous billionaires and they want Charlie to join their little clique…if he survives all the assassination attempts.  And without truly understanding his uncle's business, it's hard to know who to trust.  Important questions for Charlie include why did his father forbid his own brother, Uncle Jake, from being part of Charlie's life just after Charlie's mother was murdered?  And why wasn't Uncle Jake part of the consortium?  And, the big one:  why did the consortium want Charlie?  If it's all about the money, then whose money and why would they think Charlie would be willing to give it all to them?  He can't even get into why Uncle Jake used talking cats to spy and there doesn't seem to be any purpose for the dolphins.  And then the big reveal that his uncle was still orchestrating things from the grave.

Oh, yes…much here that merits chuckles and a snort here and there.  But there is a plot, too!  There's much more going on with the billionaire clique and that's obvious even to Charlie.  And then with all the blowing things up (including his home), stabbing, and murdering…Charlie has to figure it out quick if he and his cats are going to survive.  It's a lovely little plot and, yes, world domination is definitely on the table.  I thoroughly enjoyed Charlie and his unconventional way of looking at things and his disarming naivete. It's a classic story of the undistinguished and inexperienced guy turning the tables on the bad guys.  The curveball is that it looks like Charlie might have to turn into a villain to do it; certainly blowing up the Chinese spy satellite with his super-laser was a good start.  And then there's allowing the dolphins to create their own union; which will certainly spread throughout the ocean. Nobody is happy with that one; billionaires are rarely supportive of unions. The cats don't particularly care one way or the other; they will still remain management.

This was a pretty fun little story with a spare 272 pages.  Scalzi has a talent for cramming a wealth of information into single sentences or paragraphs so the story sped along quite rapidly.  I was rather disappointed when I ran out of pages even though he wrapped everything up pretty neatly.  It wasn't a total surprise ending but I was willing to allow Scalzi to drag me along to the end.  It would make a terrific movie; just sayin'.  And CGI would totally work on the cats and dolphins.  Of course, they'd want a cut…  ~~  Catherine Book

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