Dire circumstances call for extreme measures. In Nate Granzow’s rollicking farce, “Get Idiota,” the author finds comedy in one man’s acts of desperation, as his quest for redemption is fraught with folly, absurdity, and moral handwringing. 

Nick Ripley, “southeastern Ontario’s second or third-most celebrated journalist,” loses his family and life savings in a doomed Ponzi scheme. In an audacious gamble to restore his fortunes, Nick travels to Mexico seeking a rare interview with Antonio Espinar, the notorious kingpin of the Las Brujas drug cartel. The venture has high risk — Espinar is known to despise journalists and butchers them upon the slightest affront; but it is also high reward — “global fame… TV appearances… book deals with six digit advances,” and, most of all, “The kind of success that would convince Maddie [Nick’s estranged wife] that leaving him had been a mistake.”

To aid him in this fool’s errand, Nick solicits assistance from Manu Paulo, an old friend and expatriate Samoan photojournalist living in Mexico. Together, they infiltrate Espinar’s drug empire and cajole their way into his good graces… for a while, that is. When the mercurial drug honcho sours on them, they flee for their lives, along with $10,000,000 of illicit product. By happenstance, Espinar’s beloved emu, Idiota, also hitches a ride with them.

With Espinar’s minions in hot pursuit and a bounty on their heads, Nick, Manu, and Idiota blunder their way from one misadventure to another. They find temporary refuge in a community of women, whose modus operandi with visiting menfolk is to love them, then castrate them. After a brief spell in a Mexican jail, they seek passage on a drug smugglers’ boat, only to barely escape a Coast Guard raid.

In addition to the raucous narrative, Granzow delivers a much of this book’s humor through Nick and Manu’s ongoing banter. For example, while wandering the waterfront in search of an unscrupulous sea captain willing to ferry them across the border, Nick laments that he doesn’t want to become a criminal, to which Manu replies:

"We both are, now. Don't you feel the change? A transformation of your very essence? You're a different man now, my friend—a vile and disreputable sort. Honestly, I'm ashamed to be seen associating with you."

Granzow’s writing is crisp, the pace is rapid, the humor is edgy, and the plot is topical. Overall, “Get Idiota” is a thinking person’s screwball comedy.