Point of View

The author uses a third-person, omniscient narrative in Bad Monkey. It allows the reader to shift perspectives to characters who are not presently interacting with each other. While Yancy is arguably the main character in the novel, the author does explore what other characters are doing away from Yancy, such as Neville’s interaction with the Dragon Queen and Eve’s interactions with Caitlin.

The characters are flawed. Yancy is poised to be the hero of the novel. Without his intervention, Nick Sterling’s case would not have been solved. Like a traditional hero, Yancy solves the case and gets the girl, but because of some of the choices Yancy makes, he is presented as an anti-hero. He assaults the husband of the woman is having an affair with, but the assault was not “premeditated” (31). Because this assault takes place before the narrative begins, it...