This story makes no sense. It really does not. You know how the opening paragraph of a book set the tone and style of the entire book. Here is the first paragraph from “Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles”.
Shelby is a slut. She is also my wife. And that presents certain problems. Actually it presents major problems: I just don’t like to think about them. Mainly because I have no real way of knowing that Shelby is a slut. I just have these dreams. And I can’t exactly say to her over breakfast, “Honey, I had this dream last night that Reed Bindler was knocking your bottom out. And I think this needs to stop.”
It is impossible to put this book down, especially when you get all the time in this world to read. The plot is unpredictable. Simply because the ideas are so crazy that you would not expect things to happen that way. But yet, in this very improbably storyline of psychics and remote viewers, CIA and IRA, Micky Mouse and Lord Vishnu, you cannot help but to fall in love with the equally improbable characters. The tagline underneath the title of this book is “A Spy Novel (Sort Of)”. Travis Anderson has a problem (in fact, he has many problems including drinking a little bit too much and paying a lot lesser tax than he should). He has these crazy premonitions that are driving him insane. But that is also his gift. He can, for example, guess the color of the udders in the online game Psychicow.com perfectly (click onto that try it out yourself!). That leads to him being recruited by a government linked agency and to be trained as a psychic. That is also when he mets a Hindu holy man who claims to be the final incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Travis Anderson not only has to find ways to save his company, his family, and his sanity. But also tasked with the responsibility of saving the world (sort of)! That is when the story gets wackier and wackier. And you would have no idea of what to believe and what not to.
“Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles” is a book written for entertainment’s sake. It is hard to define its genre because the book is part drama, part action, and part fantasy. There is little morale to derive from. If I may pick one, I think the book amplifies the human imperfections and makes them acceptable, even attempts to make them beautiful. Or to better put, embracing life’s imperfections is part and parcel of being happy.