The Crash of Hennington is so strange that nobody pays much attention to the rhinoceros herd that occasionally rampages through town. Though ornery, the giant beasts--known collectively as The Crash--are more docile than the human citizens of Hennington, whose schemes ultimately cause much more wreckage than a few bent traffic signs. As a freewheeling mix of satire, social comedy, and science fiction, The Crash of Hennington recalls the wildest books of Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut. In the colourful near-future scenario imagined by first-time author Patrick Ness, society is freshly rebuilt after an unspecified catastrophe. Hennington's benevolent leaders--Cora the mayor and Archie the local multi-millionaire--are ready for retirement and have carefully prepared the way for their successors. Naturally, things don't work out so smoothly, thanks in part to two men who do not have the town's best interests in mind: Arthur's son Thomas, who has amassed great power as pimp and drug dealer to Hennington's elite; and Jon Noth, a Mephistophelean fellow who's out to settle an old score nearly four decades after being dumped by Cora. As he tells his lackey, "I am not an average man, Eugene, and I don't mean that in a boastful way. In fact, it has often worked to my detriment, but I do know a few things. I'm not prepared to share that destiny just yet but know this, I am not mistaken, misled or delusional." But even these villains will get swept up in the madness that surges through Hennington like an angry rhino. At times, the chaos threatens to overwhelm the author as well. Ness has stuffed The Crash of Hennington with so many characters and storylines that the book nearly bursts at the seams. Moreover, the cataclysmic final scenes bring a few of the plot strands to a very hurried finish. But the ingenuity of Ness's ideas and boldness of his prose compensate for his entertaining debut's sin of overambition. --Jason Anderson
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