Jonathan Lethem

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. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Gun, with Occasional Music

The first novel by Jonathan Lethem (author of the award-winning Motherless Brooklyn) is a science-fiction mystery, a dark and funny post-modern romp serving further evidence that Lethem is the distinctive voice of a new generation. Conrad Metcalf has problems. He has a monkey on his back, a rabbit in his waiting room, and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. (Maybe evolution therapy is not such a good idea). He's been shadowing Celeste, the wife of an Oakland urologist. Maybe falling in love with her a little at the same time. When the doctor turns up dead, Metcalf finds himself caught in a crossfire between the boys from the Inquisitor's Office and gangsters who operate out of the back room of the Fickle Muse.

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Laura Mauler

A lot of this book felt like a cheesy noir detective story, from the bantering that always leaves our hero with the last word to the predictable sexual conquest. On top of that, the writing had some pretty big flaws. Of many, here is one example:

The big man chuckled. "What would be my motive for telling you that?"
"Simple. I'll find out one way or another. Either you tell me now or I bother your loved ones about it."
"Very well. There's something I like about letting you go on thinking your threats are effective with me. I suppose I admire your bluster."

See how the author has to have the big-man character explain his motive for revealing information? That's because the author is having that character do something that makes no sense given what has already been told to the reader. Major no-no.

So, three stars? Really? I think yes, and it's because of the twist 2/3 of the way through the book, and the way that the twist sustains itself to the end. I was phoning it in with this book, just getting through it for my bookclub, until that twist. Then I sat up, tucked my feet under myself, and dove on in.

Daryl Houston

I don't typically love genre fiction, but this one was so weird in how it messed with the genre that I found it really appealing.

Kali Nichta

In his first novel, Lethem delighted me by doing a very canny impersonation of one of my favorites, Raymond Chandler. To the books detriment, though, this also caused me to compare Lethem's "private inquisitor", Conrad Metcalf, to Chandler's Philip Marlowe (one of my favorite characters in all of fiction), and Metcalf came up a little wanting. There's just something empty about Metcalf, something missing. 

In the end, though, maybe that was the point.

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

Gun, with Occasional Music

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