The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code

Jonny Hooker is a guitar-player tormented by imaginary personalities and situations. In trying to solve the Da-Da-De-Da-Da code he finds himself on the run as a murder suspect, trying to uncover a global conspiracy and discover why so many rock musicians die at 27.

The setting of suburban park, local pub and stately home turned museum is a more familiar ‘English' context than the Toy City/Hollywood of ‘The Hollow Chocolate Bunnie of the Apocalypse'/'The Toyminator'.

For once, R.R. has a protagonist that I found sympathetic. Jonny seems less cynical compared to other Rankin characters, both in this book and others I've read recently. While I often find the dialogue entertaining, I don't usually care about what happens to the characters.

The story follows the arc we often see in action films, with us finding out things with Jonny (even though he's unsure what is actually real), building to a big finale with Jonny trying to thwart the conspiracy before its too late.

Again, R.R. takes something odd that may well have some truth to it, and starting from a fairly innocuous start spirals into a fantastic story where the reader is happy to accept all kinds of weird events along with the one-liners and comic asides that we've come expect.

As the pace picked up, I wanted to keep reading find out how it was going to end. While the final chapter was less comic, I appreciated the way Jonny was given a fitting ‘way to go'.