Bad Monkeys
This is a 2007 book by Matt Ruff. Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons -- "Bad Monkeys" for short. The confessions earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy -- or playing a different game altogether.
Spoiler Alert: Due to the nature of this book, there are a lot of spoilers in the trope list.
Tropes used in Bad Monkeys include:
- Abusive Parents: Jane's mother.
- All Just a Dream: Everything after Jane meets the Scary Clowns.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Panopticon has cameras in any picture with eyes and also in library binding.
- Dead All Along: Phil. Zig-zagged when it turns out he's not actually dead.
- The Ending Changes Everything: Turns out Jane is actually a mole from The Troop and that entire story may or may not have been a lie.
- Evil Twin: Bad Jane. Turns out she's not real, though.
- Heroes-R-Us: The organization Jane joins.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Apparently Phil was this, and that's why the Bad Monkeys were able to recruit him.
- Magic Realism: The organization sees everything, can make things appear from thin air, and have dream lessons. However the focus isn't really on the magical aspects of what they do. It almost borders on Mundane Fantastic.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: NC Guns make people's deaths look like natural causes such as heart attacks or strokes.
- The Mole: Jane
- Monster Clown: The "Scary Clown" division. Apparently John Wayne Gacy was one of them who went rogue.
- Mrs. Robinson: Jane had a habit of sleeping with underage boys (aka "pet boys") in exchange for booze and a place to stay.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: The Troop.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Annie
- Reverse Mole: Phil
- Serial Killer Killer: What "Bad Monkeys" does.
- Unreliable Narrator: Jane.
- Your Television Hates You: After Dixon reveals that he knows about Jane's "pet boys", all she sees or hears is stuff related to that, such as The Mary Kay Letourneau Story, Michael Jackson songs, and even songs by the Pet Shop Boys.