Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem

This is science fiction.  But in the limited sense that it takes place in some near future, in which genetically enhanced animals work as domestic servants, and police, instead of giving tickets and prosecuting crime, deduct karma points from offenders' ID cards.  More than what you might typically picture as sci-fi, this is a private eye story.  (I kept thinking of Garrison Keillor's Guy Noir character: "A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions. Guy Noir, Private Eye." Cue the slow, jazzy sax theme.)

The best part of Gun is Lethem's picturesque phrases.  (Come to think of it, these lines would fit well in a Guy Noir skit.)  Every now and then there will be a memorable sentence or two that makes me smile.  Some examples:

The clouds were still bunched up in the sky like a gang on a street corner, and it looked to me like they had the sun pretty effectively intimidated.

The case [which he was investigating] was like some kind of invasive malignancy.  It filled whatever space it was given, and worse, blended itself into the healthy tissue so you didn't know where to make the cut.  It had blended itself into my life.

It was the kind of neighborhood where you give your car a little involuntary glance back over your shoulder after you park it, and if you have any doubt whether you locked it, and doubt at all, you walk all the way back just to check.

I was stupid enough to think there was something wrong with the silence that had fallen like a gloved hand onto the bare throat of the city.

She [a potential client trying to seduce him] applied herself to the front of my body like a full-length decal, seeking points of pressure all the way up and down, and working them until they responded.

[After getting bashed on the head by his adversary's henchman]  Then the floor peeled up in a curl to embrace the sides of my head, and the weave of the carpet spiraled up to tickle the inside of my nose.

Clever phrases and colorful language aside, there is a story here.  But it wasn't one that enthralled me.  This is one of those books that is somewhat enjoyable for the reading experience, but in terms of story, I was ready to get it over with.  By the time the detective got around to figuring out who killed whom and why, I didn't really care.  Suffice to say that the continual references to "make"--the government-provided blends of drugs with ingredients like addictol, forgetol, and acceptol--ends up not being simply a part of the background of Lethem's future America, but a crucial plot element.

I am sufficiently curious about Lethem's work that I might pick up another of his novels at some point.  Fans of the dark, literary sci-fi of Philip Dick and his ilk might enjoy Gun, With Occasional Music, but Lethem's definitely an acquired taste.