The crying of lot 49

By far the shortest of Pynchon's great, dazzling novels - and one of the best. Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oepida in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49. 'Engineered like a rocket' Ned Beauman, Independent 'The best book to start with' Guardian