I just finished Chris Elliot's first book, The Shroud of the Thwacker. Chris Elliot, for those who don't know, is a crazy comic actor who used to appear on Letterman, eating dog food and living under the audience. He went on to create the amazingly bizarre Get A Life TV show and Cabin Boy movie. He's done a bunch of other guest stints on other shows, but when he's in charge, his total surreal hilarity comes out. What I like about Chris is what I like about Monty Python and Salvador Dali. He just creates completely illogical scenarios and they're freakin' hysterical!

"Thwacker" is basically a whole hodgepodge of zany, surreal moments strung together with the following premise: In the 1800s, a serial killer is murdering prostitutes by hitting them in the head with a sack of apples...How Chris Elliot, Teddy Roosevelt and Yoko Ono come into the story I won't spoil. The story is sort of a parody of Jack the Ripper and The Da Vinci Code. Sort of. It's also sort of like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...but not really.

I loved the first half of the book and merely greatly enjoyed the second. It is really fast reading because there's nothing to remember or pay attention to! It's just one insane moment after another and it's so damn funny. I don't think another similar book would pack the same punch, so I hope Chris' next book is not just more of the same.

Anyway, if you like zany, random, bizarre humor, read the Shroud of the Thwacker! I give it 4 heads!