Christopher Moore back with zany 'Souls'

Deep into Christopher Moore’s fantastically bizarre new novel, Secondhand Souls, Audrey, one of the main characters, explains to a hospital nurse why she must stand vigil by the body of a murdered comrade. She confides that she’s a Buddhist nun working undercover for the San Francisco cops.

“I would watch that show,” says the skeptical nurse. “I wouldn’t believe it, but I would watch it.”

The nurse’s deadpan reply is one of the novel’s countless great lines. It also sums up how you go about reading this wickedly entertaining tale of kinda-ordinary, anti-hero weirdoes fending off Evil Incarnate from the underworld as the Golden Gate City teeters on the brink of the apocalypse. Know up front that suspension of disbelief is the height requirement for this rollicking ride.

The sequel to A Dirty Job, Moore’s 2006 madcap mythic apocalyptic novel, Secondhand Souls is populated with some of the same unforgettably wacky characters. Having rescued San Francisco from the Dark Forces by sacrificing his life, sweet, clueless, “beta male” Charlie Asher is back. His girlfriend Audrey (see above) uses a Buddhist p'howa consciousness transfer to project his soul into a living, talking, knee-high, crocodile-headed “meat puppet” she stitched together from road kill and cold cuts. She’s done it before, creating a whole herd of looney Squirrel People.

Like Charlie, other good-guy Death Merchants are supposed to be following “Great Big Book of Death” directives, culling souls from the newly dead and storing them for safe keeping until needed. But nasty Celtic war goddesses, The Morrigan, are wiping out the Death Merchants. Still standing, among a few others, are retired SFPD homicide detective Alphonse Rivera, a procedural asset in this adventure, and 7-foot-tall, 275-pound record-store owner Minty Fresh, who exudes courageous cool.

That’s barely a dent in this zany cast, though. A likeable screeching Banshee packing a Taser appears often. The “deeply creepy” Lily is brilliant on the suicide crisis center phones. And 7-year-old Sophie, Charlie’s cute daughter, is precociously smart and jarringly foul-mouthed. Sophie also happens to be the Luminatus —or Big Death — empowered to kill by uttering a single word. She’s the primary obstacle preventing Evil Darkness from overtaking the universe.

Early in the story, Minty Fresh asks incredulously, “And the only thing keeping the Forces of Darkness at bay has been demoted to, what, a first grader?”

“Second,” said Charlie. “But she’s in the advanced reading group.”

While character-driven and super fueled by witty, understated dialogue, the plot is brimming in this absurdist view of hip San Fran taking on End Time. This novel has lots of moving parts, not the least of which is the subplot of the unsettled ghosts on the Golden Gate Bridge. That gets so good it could’ve been a compelling stand-alone novel, but ghost-whisperer, bridge-painter Mike Sullivan, and his ethereal soulmate Concepción, are crucial to the outcome.

The author of 14 other novels, Moore has emerged with a cult-like following by writing offbeat narratives saturated with heart and humor. If you close your eyes and read him, for all the colorful characters, verbal mischief and crazy wisdom you might think it’s Tom Robbins; or for the dark satire and intelligent mirth, Kurt Vonnegut.

But Moore has brings his own game and creates a novel that pulses with its own glowing soul start to finish, if you can imagine. And you can’t, until you read it.

Secondhand Souls

By Christopher Moore

William Morrow, 335 pp.

3.5 out of 4 stars