Angelmaker

Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker is an astounding piece of literature, that includes but is not limited to:
lesbian spies, mechanical bees, undertakers, a villain that wouldn't look out of place in a Bond movie, rivalries and J. Joe Spork.
  Joe is a humble clock maker, who intends to live his life on the straight and narrow, unlike his criminal father.  This plan goes to pot after he is sent to a strange town to inspect a strange device, and he becomes entangled with a rivalry and plot to destroy human kind that has lasted decades.  With plenty of meanderings throughout what seems like a complex ,and yet once deconstructed totally simple, plot Angelmaker is hilarious, sombre, sad, and baffling all at the same time.  The size of the hardback may be intimidating, and the first few chapters are perhaps not the page turners that the rest of the book turns out to be, but trust me, Angelmaker is bonkers, and that's why it is brilliant.