Gun, with Occasional Music: Library Edition

In a bizarre, noirish world shared by people and intelligent animals, Conrad Metcalf, a human private detective, finds one of his cases has drawn him into a conflict between gangsters and the Inquisitor's office

Chandleresque, hard-boiled detective narrative finds a quirky new milieu in this SF/mystery/farce of murder and mass mind control set in a near-future Oakland, Calif. Conrad Metcalf is a private dick, but in his era that profession is even more ignominious than in the past. Due to some extreme governmental measures aimed at maintaining public docility, asking questions is taboo, leaving memory as Metcalf's sole resource. Government-distributed "Make," a cocaine-like blend of synthetic, mind-altering drugs, is now de rigeur . So is the magnetic card each citizen carries to keep track of his or her karma points. These points are awarded or docked by "the Office" for good or bad behavior and if the balance hits zero, a cryogenic prison term may ensue. Most of the menial work is done by genetically engineered English-speaking, bipedal "evolved" animals--sheep, apes, rabbits and kangaroos--and one of the latter is gunning for Metcalf. In this confusing age, the murder of Dr. Maynard Stanhunt, Metcalf's former client, leads the detective to a convoluted conspiracy, unimaginable in our own time. Lethem's invocation of Chandler often wears a bit thin--the prose here is a good deal clumsier than the real thing, and this sort of imitation has already been done too often. Still this colorful first novel is a fast and lively read, full of humorous visions and outlandish predicaments.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Conrad Metcalf is a p.i. (Private Inquisitor) with more than the usual problems: he's switched nerve endings in his sex organs with his absent girlfriend; he's running low on the karma points that keep him out of the state-ordained deep-freeze; and he keeps asking questions in a futuristic world in which mind-numbing drugs are pandemic and curiosity is rude at best. When Dr. Maynard Stanhurt, the Oakland urologist who'd recently hired Metcalf to tail his wife Celeste, is killed, the postmodern p.i. fights to clear karma-poor Orton Angwine, brother of Celeste's housemate Pansy Greenleaf, from the freezer as well. Slinging cyberspeak and tags from Raymond Chandler with equal panache, waggish Metcalf holds his own against a pair of tough Public Inquisitors, babyhead Barry Greenleaf, and a variety of genetically enhanced rabbits, kittens, dogs, and a kangaroo enforcer named Joey Castle. But it isn't until after his own karma runs out and he emerges from a six-year freeze to an incomparably bleaker world--memory is now illegal--that Metcalf finally puts the pieces together. A first novel whose mix of genres and voices (``Tell him next time he wants to talk to me, don't send a marsupial'') comically focuses a nightmare hash of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In a near-future Oakland, both animals and infants routinely speak and behave like adult humans thanks to "evolution therapy," and Conrad Metcalf is a jaded private investigator whose latest case pits him against police and gangsters alike when his most recent client, a wealthy urologist, is found murdered. After the prime suspect, already condemned and scheduled for long-term hibernation, convinces Metcalf he's innocent, the case gives Metcalf's gumshoe instincts a workout, leading him down a meandering trail upon which he meets the victim's widow and an evolved baby who may or may not be hers and discovers a sinister blueprint for a backroom barracks designed to house other evolved babies. Lethem's first novel is a sparkling pastiche of Chandleresque detective fiction displaced to an almost comical postmodern landscape. Amid its smartly delivered first-person narration and crackling dialogue, even a tough-talking kangaroo that intermittently tangles with Metcalf seems plausible. An outstanding debut for a welcome new voice in both sf and mysteries. Carl Hays

Private detective Conrad Metcalf finds himself the victim of an official inquisition when the murder of a former client and an obvious cover-up attempt lead him into dangerous political territory. Set in a near-future where only police and detectives are licensed to ask questions and where drugs to suppress memory are commonplace, this first novel imparts a new meaning to the word mystery . Spare prose and tight plotting create a taut sf thriller that should appeal to both sf and mystery fans.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.