Charlie Asher is the proprietor of a small shop in San Francisco whose life is as normal as normal gets. But, after his wife dies shortly after giving birth, Charlie is left on his own to raise their newly born daughter. That's when things start to get weird. Weird as in objects in his store start glowing, strangers dropping dead before him, and giant ravens attacking him. Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new position: as Death.

In the book A Dirty Job, Christopher Moore takes the reader on a hilarious ride through the streets, and below, of San Francisco in an over-the-top tale that might make you rethink your opinions on death. Moore integrates a cast of characters that you just have to fall in love with . . . Or at least laugh at, such as Charlie's baby daughter, the "Hellhounds", a Goth chef, a lesbian aunt, and a porn-surfing retired cop.

I was laughing on the very first page, and hardly stop until the end. A Dirty Job is a fast and fun read. Although the topic is death, the book isn't heavy or philosophically weighty. Moore is a wizard with words and his descriptions can be riotously funny.

If I had one complaint, it is that the book has a recurring gag about the Beta Male. It is funny at first, but gets a bit old after the fifteenth or sixteenth time. Otherwise, A Dirty Job is a dark, unusual, and hysterically funny book.