The Haddock Flies At Midnight

The Dogsbreath Histories Book 1

Fiction - Humor/Comedy
563 Pages
Reviewed on 09/03/2022
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

The Haddock Flies At Midnight by Keven Shevels is a satirical mystery novel and the first book in its series, The Dogsbreath Histories. The book is crass and could be perceived as racist, and sometimes you read things out loud with a lisp, but as Shevels assures us, it is all in good fun, and as one of the aforementioned minorities, it doesn't bother me. We won't be sharing a meal or anything, but Shevels can certainly write. The novel begins in a sleepy English town where nothing ever happens aside from the occasional man in women's underwear, but Ivor Dogsbreath, the lead character, is fine with ladies' underwear. And beans. Then a Russian turns up murdered and in swoops Stephanie with her amazing hair and MI5 credentials. There's also sex, terrorists, rubber underwear, and a woman named Rosemary Honeybutt who is “a feminist... a witch and a member of the North Yorkshire and South Durham Brotherhood of Satanists and Associated Followers of Beelzebub.”

I know you're already hooked so let me just dive right into the important stuff. Keven Shevels is a funny guy. It's a potty-mouth slapstick type of humor that will offend pretty much everyone, but there's no question that The Haddock Flies At Midnight is the book people will read but not tell anyone they are reading it. Because people are called Mr. Scrotum. The writing is well done and I enjoyed how the shifting of drivers is based on where an ancillary character happens to be at that exact moment. The red herrings abound but who the terrorists might be isn't really left to the imagination; they're numbered numerically. One of the characters, a dog named Henry who might just be my favorite, finds a weird ball. Two owls have a conversation. It's all fun and games until a hot woman starts dreaming about a guy named Dogsbreath and it all goes happily uphill from there. Highly recommended.