I have been deeply absorbed in the roller coaster ride that is Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys the last few nights and I have to tell you - I have never read a book quite like this one. It starts out with Jane Charlotte accused of murder (which she admits) being held in jail and talking to a psychiatrist who is trying to figure out just how crazy she really is. What follows is her long explanation for how she came to kill a guy - not a really bad guy but a guy she didn't like. It turns out that Jane works for a secret government organization that goes by the unofficial name of "Bad Monkeys". They kill the bad guys, the really bad guys, and this time it just didn't quite work out the way it was supposed to. Her explanation for how she came to be a Bad Monkey (which begins with her childhood) is the story that Ruff has written.

What you've got here seems to be science fiction. It's set in the present day (or thereabouts) but there is a lot of high tech gadgetry involved and although there are no aliens or that kind of thing, there are some serious guns and bombs and surveillance equipment. But the book veers away from expected territory and into drama as Jane talks about her difficult childhood with her single-parent mother and her younger brother. The relationship between Jane and Phil (her brother) becomes increasingly hard to pin down as the psychiatrist points out inconsistencies with Jane's story - and also reminds her of facts that she keeps skipping or ignoring. But Jane always has a plausible excuse for why she tells the story her way, and why her way is right.

Except of course for those parts that she has to admit are wrong.

I don't want to suggest that the book is confusing because it is not - not at all. You can easily follow this plot (which has a nice dose of adventure and thrills thrown in as well), it just does not go - EVER - where you expect it to. By the end of the book, the final few pages, I was pretty much blown away. I didn't see the ending coming, not at all. (I'm sure some readers might figure it out, but they won't be disappointed - it's how Ruff makes it all work that really impresses here.)

I'm going to put Bad Monkeys in my December column. It's not a teen book (and there is some mention of sex so it belongs with the high school crowd) but it works fine for teens. I think boys and girls will love this - they will love Jane's snarky (dare I say obnoxious) attitude; the fact that she is not purely good or bad, and Ruff's plot will suck them right in. It's an awesome ride of a book and one I highly recommend.

(It's blurbed by Neal Stephenson as "fast. wicked. scarily clever..." for heaven's sake! How do you resist that?)