Anja DesMoine lives a quiet life and works at a crisis hotline in a small town in northeastern Kentucky. But when a man is found gruesomely murdered, a boy commits suicide under strange circumstances, and an Australian Bearded Dragon called Bert Reynolds goes missing from the scene of a crime, things start to get uncomfortable for Anja, who has a few secrets of her own.
Anja goes on the lam, and the murder investigation, under the dubious leadership of Lieutenant Simon Kretzmar, takes on the quality of a comedy of errors. As the bodies pile up, Anja and Kretzmar must confront the things they most fear in life: family, failure and being alone.
How to Look After Bert Reynolds is a rollercoaster of a novel, a gripping but oddball whodunit with a cast of offbeat characters, a dazzling array of pop culture references, and a very unlikely hero. It's a story about a series of murders, about life in a small town, but also about making peace with one's past, and finding friendship in unexpected places.
