One of many things that irritate me in this world is reviews that say, “This book just didn’t work for me.” I’m sure I’ve written some myself, but it seems a pointless exercise. Reviews should be reserved for people who understand what’s going on, whether they love it or hate it. If it just disappoints you for reasons you can’t articulate, why bother reviewing at all?

Still, here I am reviewing a book written by a friend of several friends, who is acclaimed by all as a good guy and a fine writer. And yet about all I can say is that it didn’t really work for me.

Bolg P.I.: The Bolg and the Beautiful is a comic mashup, a combination of hardboiled detective story and fantasy. A “bolg” is a kind of Irish dwarf, and our hero/narrator, who is generally just known as Bolg, has survived (like the characters of Gaiman’s American Gods) into the modern world. Surviving with him are a number of mythological beings, including a wizard, the goddess Freya and some family members, and the dwarfs of the Rheingold.

When Freya, who is quite old now but still retains the power to dazzle any normal male, is robbed of her savings by a con man (who is immune to her charms because he swings the other way), Bolg is called in to try to recover the money for her. He employs natural and supernatural means to accomplish this task, and there’s a lot of comedy along the way.

I did laugh sometimes, and the author now and then made comments on the world with which I agreed profoundly. But the mix didn’t satisfy me. It didn’t entirely work either as drama or farce, for my taste.

I won’t deny, however, that the prose was good and I got some laughs out of it. So your mileage may vary, and likely will.