Kraken by China Mieville

A preserved specimen of a giant sea squid, also known as the kraken, suddenly disappears, tank and all, from a London Natural History Museum. There is no way the tank could have been removed unnoticed. Yes, this is the story of a squidnapping!

That should give you a big clue about the nature of this novel: it is a seemingly tongue-in-cheek blend of a Dashiell Hammett-style detective novel (with red herrings and much random bloodshed), a Harry Potter-style alternate magical sub-culture (with a struggle to save the world from a dire consequence), and Alice in Wonderland (with ordinary people suddenly thrown into a somewhat whimsical, illogical world).

Museum curator Billy Harrow (some echoes of Billy Pilgrim here) is hijacked into the search, accompanied by Dane, a member of a cult which worships the kraken, and Wati, a disembodied soul who can only speak when he enters a statue or human figurine. (There is much referencing to Star Trek here, including the fact that Wati speaks much of the time through an action-figure of Captain Kirk.) Also searching are a trio of London detectives, including the foul-mouthed Colleywood, who seems to be modeled upon Amy Winehouse. Competing with them to find the kraken is Tattoo, a crime boss of the magical underworld, whose essence is imprisoned in a tattoo on the back of a hapless captive.

Other participants include such Alice-like characters as the knuckleheads, who have giant fists in place of heads; witch and wizard familiars, such as cats and birds, who are on strike; and gunfarmers, who "grow" guns. And that's not all.

This is grand romp through a hodge-podge of genres and cultural references, and it was much fun to read for the first 250 pages. Then it got a little old and too much piled up, but the need to know the solution to the mystery kept me reading for the next 250.It was just a little too much and went on way too long.

I would recommend this book to people who like to read really weird stuff!

I forgot to mention, but this novel owes more than a little for inspiration to Neil Gaiman's American Gods. But all these inspirations were so transparent that I believe Mieville intended for the reader to notice and to feel "in the know." So that's OK. I guess.