I was waiting at the doctor’s office and this was the only thing I had downloaded, otherwise I never would have finished it. It’s just, well, kind of dumb – ridiculous thing after ridiculous thing. You can’t even really say there is a plot because everything that happens is so outlandish that anything could happen, so there is nothing to hold it together.

Kevin Austin is an orphan. He left a bad foster home, heading for New Orleans and soon finds himself hearing voices that tell him to travel to various towns and help out various supernatural characters. Eventually, the voices send him to a small town in Texas where he meets an evil clown who offers him a ride, tries to poison him, and then kicks him out of a moving car with his big clown feet. There is no explanation of why the voices – who so far have been sending Kevin to help people – have sent him instead to a killer clown.

But that’s kind of par for the course. Most of the things in the book have no real explanation. For example, Kevin has hypnotic powers: persuasion, suggestion, diversion, dismissal, even a hypnotic power that allows him to possess people. There’s no real explanation of these powers, except that he learned them from the Amazing Julie (and there is no explanation or back story for her, either).

He ends up wandering in haunted woods until he reaches Eden, a magical town on the side of a mountain, filled with strange characters, some of whom are dead, and one of whom is headless, but still walking around. Through strange circumstances, Kevin ends up being named the new librarian – a position where he not only handles the library books, but is also responsible for solving murders (no idea why). His first case is the murder of the previous librarian who was poisoned right in front of him.

None of it really makes any sense or held together for me as a plot. It’s a lot of absurd (and sometimes absurdly funny) scenes tacked together, but there was not much flow to it, at least for me.

My copy of The Librarian of the Haunted Library came from my personal library. At least it was cheap.