words in scarlet ink

So, I’m pretty sure Edgar Cantero is a magician, because there is no way this story should have worked.

The offices of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean have one desk. One chair. One phone. A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean share an office. They share a job. They share a body.

Twins who are ultimately half of a truly functional person – he’s logical, she’s creative, he’s ordered, she’s wild – they work as “Private Eyes” out of a dingy office by Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, and have engaged in a battle for dominance since they were in utero.

A.Z. Kimrean infiltrate the inner circle of a California drug lord to discover who is murdering his sons one by one, and Cantero, with acerbic wit and clever writing, turns every noir and PI trope on its ear. This book is a witty, funny, biting, gender bending adventure about family, embracing being the hero of your own story, and basically being a fucking weirdo.

How the twins function doesn’t really matter. Their psych doctor (who is also like a mom to them) calls them chimeric twins. Adrian is the twin everyone wants on the case, Zooey not so much. Zooey is also a bit of a nymphomaniac and the twins are a hermaphrodite.

As I said, nothing about this story should have worked, and yet, the book was very enjoyable. It was funny, interesting, and incredibly fresh. As someone fairly familiar with the detective genre, it was pretty cool to watch this book subvert it at every turn.

This Body’s Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us is another Edgar Cantero book, so it’s probably not for everyone, but I enjoy Edgar Cantero, and I’m highly recommending it.