CASUAL REX

By: J.A. Hitchcock
Date: Wednesday, February 06, 2002

I really enjoyed ANONYMOUS REX, Garcia's first book and the sequel to this one. I also enjoyed the reader for the audiobook, Maxwell Caulfield - he was main character Vincent Rubio, as well as the other characters. So I was expecting him to be the reader for this book. Not so. Jim Hanks is the older brother of actor Tom Hanks, and I just could not tell the difference between the two in the voice department. All I could think of was Woody from Toy Story reading CASUAL REX. Hanks' voice just didn't fit and still doesn't, which detracts from the book itself, which is wonderful.

As in ANONYMOUS REX, the story revolves around Private Investigator Vincent Rubio, who is not quite he seems. A velociraptor in human "guise" (a costume to fool us humans), Vince and his partner Ernie are the kind of PIs that wives who suspect their husband is cheating on them employ. Enter Ernie's ex-wife, Louise, who Ernie is still very much in love with, even though she's remarried and quite content now. Louise is worried about her younger brother, Rupert, who has joined a group called the Progressives and "donated" a lot of money (including some of her own) to the group that she suspected was really a cult. This smelled a lot like Scientology to me, which was a hoot. And yes, all of the main characters in CASUAL REX are dinosaurs in disguise.

Don't ask me to explain it or that would take a while, but suffice it to say that over thousands of years, dinos (as Garcia refers to them) evolved to be closer to human size and wear these guises so that they can blend in with humans. Dinos can tell who is human and who is dino by their unique smell, or pheromones, that are emitted from the back of their necks. The Progressives are adamant that dinos can reclaim their "ancestry" by becoming 100% Dinosaur Natural, as they put it. But it costs money of course.


Vince and Ernie go undercover to one of the Progressives' parties to recruit new members and Vince becomes smitten by the leader, Circe, a beautiful velociraptor who emits such a scent that it transports Vince to a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth - pre-human. Hers is a combination of rosemary, fennel, and thyme. Even so, he and Ernie grab Rupert, get a deprogrammer to cure him and everyone's happy. At least until Rupert shows up dead soon after. Digging around, Vince and Ernie find that there had been other dinos who also mysteriously died soon after being deprogrammed.

They travel to Hawaii to a Progressives camp to find out what's going on and get more than they bargained for. Garcia has sprinkled CASUAL REX with colorful characters, snappy repartee, and a story that makes complete sense, even if the characters are dinos in disguise. In a world where herbs are drugs and dinos walk among us, CASUAL REX is a delight.

Rumor has it that ANONYMOUS REX will soon be a movie; I hope so. I can't wait to see Vince and his pals come to life. I just hope they get someone with a voice that fits Vince and not Jim Hanks. Pass me the basil, please.

CASUAL REX

Grade: A

Author(s): Eric Garcia, Jim Hanks (reader on audio version)

Publisher:  Publishing Mills

Price: $24.95