Just why do humpback whales sing? That’s the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me.

Trouble is, Nate’s beginning to wonder if he hasn’t spent just a little too much time in the sun. ‘Cause no one else on his team saw a thing — not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot — and his research facility is trashed — Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on.

This is quite possibly the strangest book I’ve ever read. I expected the marine biologists and whale researchers — I was not prepared for everything else.

I don’t want to say a lot because I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so I’m going to say this:

  1. I love the humor. I laughed out loud at several places during this book.
  2. There’s a speculative fiction element to this book. Nothing in the description prepared me for it. Thankfully I enjoy speculative fiction, so I kept reading.
  3. While I was explaining the plot to my husband, he asked, “Is this the story of someone’s bizarre acid trip?” Yeah — it’s weird.

But it was my kind of weird and I couldn’t stop listening (note: the audio book is extra fun because you actually get to listen to humpback whale calls). Some parts were a little hard to follow because I wasn’t sure which character’s head I was in, but I pushed past those parts (and it was worth it). If you’re looking for an unusual laugh, I recommend this book. It reminded me a bit of Carl Hiaasen, but trippy.

R-rated for language and some interesting sexual descriptions (though it wasn’t really sex — you’d just have to read it to understand). (Get your copy here.)