In A Word: The Essential Tool for Finding the Perfect Word. By Mark Broatch. New Holland. RRP $34.99.

'It was a dark and horrid night. The amoral cad wearing an odious jumper flicked the light switch twice, due to his crippling obsessive compulsive disorder and because the power had failed. A deplorable bimbo, his once lofty profession was now a bunch of arse thanks to his crummy, gimcrack ways. Forget Death of a Salesman, this moribund, otiose spruiker couldn't sell texting to teenagers.'

So could have begun one of Marlow's finest noir masterpieces, had he but a copy of Mark Broatch's indispensable tool, In a Word. Alas, he did not and his choppy, blunt-as-nails prose is his only legacy. Shame. Superlatives rarely fail me as I am a wild exaggerator and known to make up words in a pinch, but if you are the type stuck on 'super' or 'fantastic' as your only forms of praise and 'dork' as your only condemnation, this book is a bona fide, damn-straight, fabulous and faultless example of a swell, sterling and superior achievement.

Structured by theme, there is everything from descriptive delights to golf terminology, films by genre and car chase as well as animal noises, every clunk, coo, creak, and croak. 'It's not exactly Wikipedia though, is it Darling?' said the economist, that sarky villain, but I think he was missing the point. 

Not intended as an exhaustive thesaurus (that's Roget's) In a Word is designed for those times when the right word fails you and a mild retardation has fused your synapses, but wait, there's more - In a Word is also an excellent compendium of insults. For example is your boss a vile, incompetent plebe with short man's syndrome? Perhaps you would like to call him (in your head, of course) a bloated, flaccid, verbose imbecile or a rummy louche or a mordant, churlish milquetoast….the possibilities are endless. As far as I'm concerned, best of all, should I ever need to place a personal ad I will have a much better vocabulary to portray myself with than GSOH or, God forbid, Good Personality (which, let's face it, is a stretch). 

Ahem, musical flourish, below a work of internet dating profile genius:
 
Kittenish, lissom, natty and nubile single with voluptuous thoughts and a catholic taste in books seeks like-minded, but not kittenish, male. 

The mind boggles. Mark Broatch is Assistant Editor and Books Editor of the Sunday Star-Times and probably, quite a spunk.

Check out Lisa Scott's other NZBM reviews as well as NZBM events in your area during October at nzbookmonth.co.nz.