To read local author Christopher Moore’s latest novel, “Razzmatazz,” is to give yourself up to the loony mayhem of a Chandler-esque escapade through 1940s San Francisco. And I would gladly give myself up to the mayhem again. The novel is well worth the read.

But let’s stop the clock right there and take it back a few ticks. Chandler-esque is a good description, but this is Raymond Chandler if ancient stone dragons could talk or a certain mischievous moonman might, by way of hello, scamper forward, bury his face in the cleavage of a male or female acquaintance, and “wag his mug back and forth and make a burble-tweeting noise approximating the sound of a happily drowning songbird,” Moore writes. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take it back to that dragon I was talking about because that guy has a few things to say.

First off, the stone dragon, well, he’s kind of the narrator. But he’s not the main character. That title belongs to Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin, a bartender and occasional gumshoe tasked by his friend Eddie “Moo Shoes” Shu to find this dragon for Eddie’s Uncle Ho. And if Sammy and Eddie can’t do it, well, bad luck for Uncle Ho because some wannabe gangster named Squid Kid plans to put an end to old Uncle Ho for the original crime of stealing the dragon statue from a Chinatown tong 40 years before.

The odyssey ahead for Sammy, Eddie and their loose band of misfits is smart and funny and all sorts of raunchy in the best way. There are drag kings and murders and vice cops galore. So much so that — as the favors, tips and duties necessary to find this stone dragon pile up — the story line starts to resemble a maze made of sand, where each new turn or dead end might shift right out from under them or, because this is San Francisco, get swallowed up by fog as if by a “damp woolen crocodile.”

The language Moore uses contributes to the fun of this novel, but it’s truly the characters and the shifts between story lines that give the most life to the narrative. Almost all of the main characters take a stint at the wheel, layering in detail, whether that comes from young Uncle Ho, who talks to animals and hears the voice of the dragon in his head, or Tilly Stilton, Sammy’s main (and only) squeeze, who is known as the Cheese to everyone, but who after too many drinks often inner-monologues an alter ego named Stilton DeCheese, private eye: “I was looking to accidentally on purpose run into a thin frail called Olivia Stoddard … and the drinks were going on expenses. I took the job.”

All these voices and perspectives, whether DeCheese, dragon or Uncle Ho, sometimes feel only loosely connected, but the sum of it all dazzles, entertains and squeezes in more than a few laughs along the way. “Razzmatazz” is another success for Christopher Moore.

Razzmatazz
By Christopher Moore
(William Morrow; 400 pages; $28.99)

Author event

Books Inc. presents Christopher Moore:In-person. 7 p.m. Monday, May 16. Free. Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Ave., S.F.www.booksinc.net