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268:(revealed over the course of the novel to be the 'barking mad' brother to the novel's main character of Icarus Smith, although Woodbine passes off his temporary assumption of the idiot brother identity as a means of allowing him to travel through the streets to the building where the final rooftop showdown will take place)
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Unlike most characters in Robert Rankin's work, who appear at inconsistent times and places but are nevertheless consistently the same person, Lazlo
Woodbine's status as a real person is often questionable, with most of his appearances explicitly referring to his status as a character in fiction, and
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Throughout his appearances, Lazlo
Woodbine has never been specifically described barring his traditional attire of a trenchcoat and fedora, with all his stories being narrated in the first person. According to the character himself, this lack of description allows readers to picture Lazlo as anyone
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According to
Woodbine, when reading one of his novels the reader can always expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a trail of corpses, no small degree of name mispronunciation – characters commonly pronounce his name wrong, calling him everything from Woodlouse to Woodstock – and enough
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office as they all look alike. However, in any of Rankin's novel where he plays a long-term role, Lazlo commonly finds his way around his four-set rule to move from location to location, such as closing his eyes while travelling from the alley to the rooftop – thus avoiding actually
158:(whose name is constantly mispronounced for no apparent reason other than a desire to do so), and only ever works four locations, regarding these four as the maximum number that a truly great private detective requires. These locations are:
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Throughout the novels, Lazlo avoids explicitly describing any of these four settings, thus allowing him to use them for multiple locations, such as arguing that any occasions where he is in an office feature him being inside
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trenchcoat humour and ludicrous catchphrases to carry you through a month of rainy
Thursdays. (Although some novels point out that the sex would be difficult given that Woodbine's four scenes lack a bedroom.)
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anything, and hence not breaking the rule – or assuming another persona altogether to account for the travel time. The only occasion where
Woodbine has clearly violated his four-set-rule was in
304:(Lazlo takes centre stage in the 30th novel by Robert Rankin, although by means of the assumed identity device used in previous novels. The real LW does make a cameo appearance though.)
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has Lazlo
Woodbine explicitly appeared as a real person, and even then he came from an alternate future and travelled back into the past to investigate a case (aided by
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character, being in the novels themselves the creation of mystery writer P.P. Penrose and described by himself as the last of the nineteen-fifties private detectives.
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In any Lazlo
Woodbine story, Lazlo commonly begins his appearance by explaining that he goes through the novel in his trenchcoat and fedora, armed with his trusty
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they care to imagine, thus imposing their own face or that of their hero onto
Woodbine, and allowing them to feel more like they are part of the story.
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The final rooftop showdown, where, after a climatic confrontation, Lazlo sends the villain plunging to oblivion in the final chapter.
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Fangio's bar, where he talks toot with Fangio the fat barman and is subsequently knocked on the head by the dame that does him wrong;
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276:(The "real" Lazlo Woodbine briefly appears in the afterlife, complaining about his fictional namesake's treatment by the author)
256:(appears as a fictional character in a VR simulation that the main character is trapped in; results in some brief confusion as
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characters are attempting to simultaneously write the story in the first person until they agree to allow Lazlo to do so)
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An alleyway, where Lazlo gets into sticky situations that involve him having to shoot somebody;
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To date, Lazlo
Woodbine – or some variation of him – has appeared in the following novels;
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his appearance in the novel being simply an artificial creation (
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The
Suburban Book of the Dead (Armageddon III: The Remake)
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The Suburban Book of the Dead (Armageddon III: The Remake)
162:Lazlo's office, where he is hired by his clients;
294:The Curious Case of the Woodingdean Chameleon
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50:. Unsourced material may be challenged and
133:'s novels. He is generally portrayed as a
114:Learn how and when to remove this message
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129:is a fictional character in some of
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253:The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag
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284:(Rizla – later revealed to be
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296:in Hugo Rune's absence)
273:Fandom of the Operator
197:"Metafictional" Status
290:The Brentford Trilogy
265:Waiting for Godalming
247:Barry the Time Sprout
222:Barry the Time Sprout
211:Waiting for Godalming
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228:List of Appearances
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