Afterlife Crisis

Graham returns to the world of Beforelife for another comic adventure, this time turning the focus onto chatty, well-meaning, and self-absorbed Rhinnick Feynman. Rhinnick has been hired by the mayor of the Afterlife, an alternate version of Detroit, to investigate Isaac Newton, whom the mayor believes to be up to something nefarious. The job quickly snowballs into a mayhem-filled mission to stop Newton from altering history forever. Complicating matters is Rhinnick’s belief that he is a character in a book, at the mercy of a mysterious Author’s whims. The screwball plot sees Rhinnick searching for Zeus, convincing a psychiatrist at the Detroit Mercy Hospice to release the patients, and desperately trying to avoid getting married. It’s jumbled, brisk, and not particularly concerned with making sense. Rhinnick himself is a comic figure in the vein of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, and the story relies on his charm to succeed. Some readers may be frustrated by the convoluted action, but fans of wacky doings and zippy dialogue are sure to be entertained. (Sept.)