Coffin's Got the Dead Guy on the Inside

What Jason Keltner wanted to do was finish Untitled #23, his favorite among thirty incomplete fragments of music he'd created in the last several months. Then Norton Platt made him an offer he could refuse - if he weren't worried about things like rent. Because he was, Jason agreed to babysit Paul Reno. The deal, after all, included expenses. And mileage. But no information about whom he was really being employed by. His first order of business: Take Paul to a party for Huey Benton and see what happens.
What happens is that Huey Benton drops dead. What happens next is that Jason and his roommates at the Manor, Robert and Martin, find themselves in the middle of a search for the "dongle." All they know about it is that it has something to do with computers and that far too many people are willing to kill to get their hands on it . . . and that Paul, somehow, is in the middle of it all.
Jason and his gang, who wouldn't even think of shooting straight, race through California subcultures looking for answers that will let them live to play another day, and when they find them they face a final problem: what to do with what they've learned when they no longer know whom to trust.

The title of this offbeat, mostly engaging but occasionally too cute, story is the answer to "What's the difference between a cello and a coffin?" That's one of several musician jokes traded by underemployed electronic composer Jason Keltner and his friend Norton Platt at the start of Snyder's second Keltner adventure (after Show Control, 1996). Platt, a shadowy figure with connections to the world of intelligence, offers Jason a paying job keeping an eye on a mutual friend, Paul Reno, who is hanging with a new crowd ("a little seedier and a little more serious than his usual") and who gets involved in software theft and a possible homicide. Paul is a royal pain, rude and condescending to Jason and his friends?Robert, a very tall actor, and Martin, "an occasional graphic artist" and aspiring knife fighter. One problem readers will have is understanding why someone doesn't punch Paul out sooner than it happens. Other readers may take issue with Snyder's reliance on scenes involving clunky old cars, a device that's refreshing for only the first few turns. Most of these objections will be made between bouts of laughter, however, as Snyder delivers dialogue that is often strikingly original and adroitly paced. His edgy, appealing characters and deft evocations of seedy Southern California urban life make return visits with Keltner and his cohorts a welcome prospect. Editor, Michael Seidman.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Jason Keltner (Show Control, Write Way, 1996) is a long-haired musician?mostly unemployed?who lives in an aging Pasadena boardinghouse. Hired to "baby-sit" Paul, a former friend turned suspicious character, Jason suddenly finds his life moving into fast-forward. He and Paul witness the death of an alcohol-loving computer whiz, they narrowly escape death at the hands of three goons, and Jason nearly wrecks his decrepit car chasing two similar thugs. The cast of multicultural misfits inspires a great deal of mostly successful humor?at times dry, inane, witty, and slapstick. Jason's spontaneous, often insane antics will appeal to most readers, especially those who enjoy Donald Westlake's comic mysteries.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Jason Keltner, former spy and aspiring composer, is facing financial ruin--until he is hired to watch Paul Reno, an untrustworthy computer genius. When Reno steals a computer gizmo (a 90s version of the Maltese falcon), Keltner tries to retrieve the gizmo and keep Reno and others from death and injury. This odd yet appealing first mystery has dialogue that is equal parts Henny Youngman jokes (the title is the punchline from a bit about cello players) and computerese. The characters are quirky yet sympathetic, and the mystery keeps readers curious to the end (although Snyder offers a confusing extra ending). This should appeal to those who liked Alan Furst's espionage gem Shadow Trade (1983). With its computer guys, snappy dialogue, car chases, and California backdrop, it suggests what might have happened if Hammett's Sam Spade had been a computer geek. John Rowen