Christopher Moore is very good at bridging the gap between a serious story and an absurd farce, and out of all of his books that I've read so far, this one is probably the best at mixing the humor with the drama.

The story is about Charlie Asher, a second-hand store operator who finds himself as a "minor death": not able to kill people at their appointed time, but responsible for caring for their soul until it can find a new home. Unfortunately, Charlie obtained this role the day his daughter was born, and the day his wife died. As a new, single father who must bear the responsibilities of a "Death Merchant", Charlie has a lot on his plate.

What makes this book different from the other Moore books I've read is that it deals with death both as a serious subject (Charlie quickly obtains a deep respect for palliative care workers), a source of humor (the other Death Merchants are a really quirky bunch, as are the people in Charlie's normal orbit), and also with a heavy helping of macabre. There were times I thought I was reading a sillier version of a Stephen King or Clive Barker novel, but the proximity of the truly dark content to the outright absurd is really a fire that keeps the engine running. It never becomes over the top, one way or the other, and turns from one to the other at just the right times.

One key concept that I wanted to mention was Charlie's role as a "Beta Male", because it's really central to the character, and is amazingly spot on. Unlike the more testosterone, successful Alpha Males, Beta Males survive by weighing options and knowing the better part of valor. Charlie is a very unlikely hero, an unlikely choice to deal in death, but he's made better by this responsibility as a Death Merchant, and as a single father.

This book didn't make me laugh out loud like Lamb, but it felt very well constructed and fantastically entertaining.