Incompetence by Rob Grant
01/12/2003 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: Gollancz. 293 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99. ISBN: 0-575-07533-1. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out
website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
In a mad, mad world which of us can
claim to be sane? A man who has no identity or existence on the computers
of Europe finds out that someone really, really wants to kill him.
Some kind of Agent, he works
as part of a cell of three who can only be contacted through personal ads. What
he does we are never quite sure. He is mainly known as Harry Salt but has a collection
of spare identities. His travels to discover the truth takes him across Europe
in a series of bizarre and comic scenarios.
 This
Europe may be strangely familiar as it is closer that we dare worry
about.
As the title 'Incompetence' suggests this is a place where the
mere fact of having a seemingly immovable obstacle of a major character
flaw does not preclude anyone from any job. It is a Europe so bound
up with paperwork and bureaucracies that if you are declared dead
no matter how well you feel it is probably best to lie down and
be buried.
Through
this minefield for the unwary in a world where most shoes are made of vegetables
and policemen have anger management issues, Harry Salt must travel to unravel
the mystery of who has killed his fellow 'agent' Klingferm and who know wants
to kill him as well.
Basically this story is an extended rant against
a world that appears to have gone rather barking. It set in a Europe that has
already decided that cucumbers must be straight, Cadbury chocolate is a 'chocolate
flavoured' product and will soon be labelling yoghurt as a 'fermented milk drink'
unless it is from Bulgaria.
Grant will find many readers who will share
his despair of a place where the trains can only run on time if they don't pick
up any passengers. He takes pot shots at everything that annoys him, the excessive
use of mobile phones, jobs for the inept, paperwork and corruption. I just hope
he got it all off his chest. This book is real 'grumpy old git' territory and
possibly some of the bile will be lost on a younger generation that take so much
of this for granted.
Action and adventure and finding some decent shoes
sums up the approach of this novel. There are guns, girls and some very odd people
indeed. I enjoyed the story though I do not share his despair over Europe...yet!
Sue
Davies 
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