Callisto by Torsten Krol

Like any other war, the war on terror warrants satire, and this novel provides a timely salvo. It is a story of epic misadventure. Falling foul of the US authorities is to be avoided, but sometimes - as they say over there - shit happens.

Odell Deefus is 21 years old, a solid, 6ft 3in lummox who must rely upon cunning to get by. As the action begins he is driving across Kansas to enlist in the army. Deefus needs a steady job, and his intentions are honourable: he wants to fight "the mad dog Islamites".

When his decrepit Chevy collapses, he calls at a farmhouse inhabited by Dean, a misfit who mows lawns for a living and plans to convert to Islam. But soon Dean is dead; startled by him during the night, Deefus overreacts and brains him with a baseball bat. Deefus hides the body, before discovering that Dean has himself killed his aunt Bree and thrust her body into the freezer under some TV dinners.

Dean's sister Lorraine comes calling. This has pluses and minuses for Deefus: Lorraine looks great in her tight prison-guard uniform, but she is suspicious over her brother's disappearance and raises the alarm when she learns of Bree's murder. Keen to distract police attention from his manslaughter, Deefus plays up Dean's Islamic connections.

Deefus has simple tastes: fast food, Captain Morgan rum and Lorraine's charms would be enough to keep him happy (Lorraine has taken precedence in his affections over Condoleezza Rice). This good life remains beyond reach, because his existence becomes dizzyingly complicated. The plot links drug dealers, evangelical Christians and, more ominously, the FBI and Homeland Security. As events escalate he finds himself the subject of rendition to a place uncannily like Guantanamo Bay.

Some aspects of Krol's portrayal of Deefus grate, notably his mangled, Dubya-style vocabulary: "overbesity", "condolement" and so on. Nonetheless, Deefus's persona is an engaging mix of deadpan and brain-dead. No one can work out whether or not he is truly an imbecile, and his sly wit is irresistible.

Callisto's roots lie in earlier anti-war fiction. Deefus's unholy innocence places him in a line of modern anti-heroes that starts with Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Schwejk, while the surreally paranoid government agencies recall the out-of-control war machine of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Krol gives the tradition a contemporary take, extracting barbed comedy from state insanity.

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