I know Christopher Moore seems to be a favorite around Pajiba, but I always come away with mixed feelings. His stories are usually amusing, and breezy but then generally also have a certain amount of ick factor to them. And I'm not talking blood and gore ick or even fart jokes (though there is a certain amount of that type of humor). This novel is certainly no different in that respect. Actually, if someone had never read anything by Moore before, this would definitely not be the novel to start with because the weirdness and ick factor were a bit more than usually present in his novels. Instead, I would recommend starting with A Dirty Job.
Following a suicide, the psychiatrist at Pine Cove decides to take everyone off their anti-depressants, afraid that she has been phoning it in. Of course, she doesn't tell her patients this, so everyone unknowingly finds their meds replaced with placebos. The titular lizard of the novel is a very old creature that lives in the water but has occasional forays on land. It is drawn in by the scent of depression coming from the island. The lizard has some type of pheromone that makes it attractive to depressed animals, giving it easy access to food. Of course, when people start going missing, the local stoner sheriff reluctantly gets involved. People are acting crazy due to a combination of the pheromones and the drug withdrawals they are unknowingly going through leading too much chaos and fumbling on the part of the protagonists. Overall, mostly amusing but there were definitely a few scenes I wasn't really that comfortable with, which also make me wonder about what's going on in Moore's brain. I'm sure I'll still work my way through most of his novels at some point since they are easy enough reads that I can still focus on them while on the elliptical/stairmaster but I'm not exactly in any rush to do so.
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