Casual Rex Paperback - 2002

“May be the most entertaining book out this year.”—Columbus Dispatch

“Every bit as delightfully strange, richly imagined and just plain funny [as his debut].” —The Seattle Times

“A prequel that’s as daringly, darkly loopy as Anonymous Rex in which dinosaurs are buckled and strapped into latex ‘guises’ and roam the mean streets pretending to be the human kings and queens of the food chain. Velociraptor Vincent Rubio, an L.A. private eye, and his older but hardly wiser partner Ernie Watson, are looking for Ernie’s ex-wife’s son Rupert, a T-Rex, in order to rescue him from the Progressives, a cult devoted to the ‘ancestors’ and the premise that all dinosaurs should be ‘au natural.’ The dino p.i.’s kidnap Rupert and have him deprogrammed by Dr. Beaumont Beauregard, but a few days later Rupert commits suicide. Or does he? In between satirizing mind-control, herd behavior, mass stupidity, dumb fashions, bloodlust, sex, and noir conventions, Garcia will have you panting over the veggie and spice displays for intoxicating, mood-altering whiffs of basil, cilantro, and even fenugreek.” —Kirkus Reviews

“You could call Casual Rex dinomite.” —Gotham Magazine

“A funny book. I can’t remember an author pulling off a more difficult premise, unless it’s T. Jefferson Parker.” —Los Angeles Times

“[Eric Garcia’s] X-Files take on the classic detective tale will appeal to both mystery and SF readers. Here’s a series with dino-sized legs.” —Publishers Weekly

“Garcia, whose rollicking debut, Anonymous Rex, jazzed up the detective genre, returns to the land the dinosaurs share with contemporary bipeds.…Seamless, wonderfully clever world-building, a little dino-depravity, and an abundance of tongue-in-cheek humor to keep things rolling along.” —Booklist

“Great fun.” —Library Journal

“It’s so hard to resist stomping around in dinosaur metaphors in reviewing Casual Rex. But the book…is too good, too funny and too inventive to get bogged down in Jurassic jargon….dripping with tongue-in-jaw wit, snappy action, funny lines and plot twists. A genre-bending, species bending, gender-bending romp of a mystery…What’s really intriguing is Garcia’s commentary about society and historical events as seen through dinosaur eyes…It’s obvious Garcia had fun with Casual Rex. Readers will too.” —The Columbus Dispatch