[sun surfer]

I loved the setting and enjoyed the humour, especially as it wasn't an all-out farce but would be half-serious one moment and then lapse into an hilarious silliness. My first laugh-out loud bit was the vacuum customers needing to be calmed about atomic fears, another favourite was the interlude in England where the plans Wormold has sent resemble vacuum cleaner parts and I also really enjoyed Wormold becoming so invested in his imaginary agents.

However, it all seemed to fizzle a bit in the last quarter or so for me. I just didn't find that part as funny as the rest and I suppose once most of the pieces were laid out it became a little more predictable than it had been before.

One particular thing seemed to break the story a little bit for me: at the dinner where Wormold was to speak, he's incredibly nervous about being poisoned, and he doubts everyone at first - except the very person who almost poisons him. If it were set up better I might have bought it better and I know Wormold wasn't any master spy but as it was the man was clearly suspicious and I thought it was a bit of sloppy plotting even for a humorous book; at least, it stuck out for me in this one.

Also, I didn't get that Beatrice was so bad at her job as the interlude first mentioning her made her out to be. I suppose that was so that we could buy her not realising Wormold was making things up?

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jeremy Northam; he did a really good job and I enjoyed it, except that the music used in between chapters and breaks was a little overbearing and long. Sometimes the music seemed to last for half a minute or more! Synamon, did you listen to the same one? What did you think of the music if so?

ETA - Has anyone hear seen the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading? it's a great film and I thought of it as I listened to this book. It's very different in setting but has the similar feel of a black comedy with ordinary people getting roped into a bumbling covert agent plot.