Anonymous Rex (Vincent Rubio Series #1)

Entertainment Weekly

Awesomely funny.

Jill M. Smith

Hot new author Eric Garcia has developed a human/dino world that is both absolutely fascinating and extremely original. If you are looking for something suspenseful, exciting and completely different, look no further.
— Romantic Times

Keith Phipps

Content aside, there's a superficial resemblance between mystery novels and pornography. Walk into a store specializing in either and you'll find numerous examples of what the television industry calls narrowcasting, with subgenres designed to appeal to almost any interest. Just as, say, Finnish spanking videos have to be out there somewhere, there's a mystery novel designed to appeal to almost any imaginable taste, whether it turns to horse racing, 18th-century dandies, or mystery-solving ferrets. First-time novelist Eric Garcia, however, has nonetheless managed to find a new, unanticipatable niche, creating a mystery novel starring dinosaurs. In the world of Anonymous Rex, the great secret society hidden from the common view through history is not the Masons or the Illuminati, but dinosaurs. Contrary to popular belief, the great lizards did not become extinct, but instead evolved to a more manageable size and disguised themselves as humans, finding employment in every corner of human society, including the field of private investigation. Vincent Rubio, a down-on-his luck velociraptor private eye with a dangerous basil habit, serves as Anonymous Rex's protagonist. After he's tossed a rare bone in the form of an arson investigation, Rubio heads from L.A. to New York and soon finds himself involved in a convoluted case involving adultery, genetic experimentation, and cross-species romance. Though not without humor, the greatest strength of Garcia's novel may be that it's not played for laughs: Anonymous Rex works as a mystery, albeit a fairly conventional one, that just happens to involve dinosaurs masquerading as humans. Garcia treats this conceit in a matter-of-fact manner, and his assured prose--in the form of semi-hardboiled narration by Rubio--never lets the inherent ridiculousness poke through. And ridiculous it is, though still a pleasurable read. Anyone waiting for dino-noir to finally hit bookshelves need wait no longer.
— The Onion.com

People

Dinomite detective yarn...splendidly warped.

USA Today

Eric Garcia pulls off this parallel dino world to a T (rex...delicious...sly humor.

Publishers Weekly

Jonathan Lethem's 1995 PI spoof, Gun, with Occasional Music, featured a genetically altered, talking kangaroo hit man, but Vincent Rubio, the Los Angeles detective hero of Garcia's audacious and imaginative debut, would have him for lunch. Rubio is a dinosaur--specifically, a Velociraptor, one of those deadly creatures who did so much damage in Jurassic Park. Garcia's outrageous conceit, beautifully supported by research and wit, is that dinosaurs never did become extinct. They secretly evolved and learned to coexist with an unsuspecting human population through an elaborate system of disguises and deceptions. (Those fossils that decorate most museums? Fakes left to fool gullible humans.) With the dinosaur community now about 5% of the human population, including doctors, cops and NFL players (most of them Brontosaurs), there should be plenty of work for a smart PI like Rubio. But ever since his beloved partner's death in a suspicious accident, the Raptor has been on a downslide. He hits the herbs too hard (his drug of choice is basil), and behaves so badly that even the nasty T-Rex who manages a large detective agency ("He had a sheep for breakfast," notes Rubio. "I can make out the fur on his molars") won't give him work. But in the true spirit of the genre, every dino dick gets a chance at redemption. Rubio's comes when he stumbles onto some top secret stuff about highly illegal mating between dinosaurs and humans. You might not believe any of this 30 seconds after you close the covers, and at odd moments the narrative veers into shtick, but while it's going on you're mostly going to be dazzled by Garcia's energy and chutzpah. Agent, Barbara Zitwer Alicea. Author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's Jan. 01 review of the Publishing Mills audiobook edition: Dinosaurs never really became extinct—they just evolved and adapted. Three million years ago they developed a method of camouflaging their species in human forms and they surreptitiously walk among us today. Some of them even solve crimes when they aren't munching basil or cilantro (to get high). Enter Vincent Rubio. He's a velociraptor who happens to be a private eye with a nose for pheromones. The secret of the dinosaurs is about to be exposed and Rubio is on the case... The language is adult at times and the action is what one might expect of this genre... a cool comedy with plot—what fun! KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2000, Berkley, 322p, 21cm, 00-048644, $12.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Bette D. Ammon; Director, Missoula P.L., Missoula, MT, May 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 3)

Library Journal

Meet Vincent Rubio, the latest thing in hard-boiled private detectives. He's a dinosaur--it seems they're still among us, disguising themselves as humans. As a private eye, Rubio finds plenty of problems to solve, among them an arson case, the death of his partner, and the need to keep his true identity concealed. This book is as slug-nutty as they come--dinosaurs are known by the scents they exude and have trouble keeping their tails tucked in--but it does follow the time-honored formula for crime-and-detection fiction: intricacy of plot, mystification, unexpectedness, and progress toward a solution. Readers who are willing to meet young newcomer Garcia on his own absurdist terms, who have an appreciation for nonsense, and who do not object to anthropomorphic romps should find this a provocative tease, but it will probably jar the sensibilities of hard-core detective fiction buffs who take their mysteries seriously. Try it if your readers like laughs with their crime. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/99.]--A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Brad Meltzer

"Think you've seen it all? You're wrong. You've never read anything like Anonymous Rex. An incredible idea--brilliantly executed. Anonymous Rex is a true original, crackling with imagination, and more fun than growing your own goatee. And did I mention the interspecies sex?"

T. C. Boyle

"If a novel, by definition, is new, rare, and strange, then Eric Garcia's Anonymous Rex is the most novel novel I've ever read. The central conceit is so startling and clever and the prose so fluid and assured, the reader doesn't even have time to blink. By turns hilarious and chilling, this is a terrific, joyful read."

Kirkus Reviews

Not many people know this, but dinosaurs only faked their extinction millions of years ago. Disguised in latex costumes, they've been working secretly among us ever since, at a ratio of 10–12% of the apparently human population. Some of them, like Vincent Rubio, hold down jobs as private eyes. And even though Vincent, while not extinct, has fallen on hard times—his partner Ernie Watson's been run down by a cab, his Lincoln's been repossessed, he's been drummed out of the Los Angeles Dinosaur Council—the canny Velociraptor still has what it takes to trace the links between an arson at the Raptor-owned Evolution Club, the murder last year of Carnotaurus industrialist Raymond McBride, and Ernie's own death. Working with evidence supplied by Brontosaurus LAPD Sgt. Dan Patterson and tidbits dangled by McBride's scheming Carnotaurus widow Judith and McBride's mistress, nightclub songbird Sarah Archer, Vincent follows the trail of Jaycee Holden, vanished Coleophysis ex-fiancée of comatose Evolution owner Donovan Burke, to Triceratops geneticist Dr. Emil Vallardo's nefarious plan to adulterate the dino gene pool. Along the way, Vincent not only provides detailed accounts of how to pass as a human, but unmasks such luminaries as Napoleon, Paul Simon, and Newt Gingrich as dinosaurs, which explains a lot about so-called human history. A whimsical, surprisingly logical farce aimed equally at fans of Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and devotees of interspecies sex. A sequel is in the works.