I saw an article by J. Lethem in the LA Weekly last week; they didn't even refer to this book in his little mini-bio. That's a shame; this is a great book. Lethem captures the essence of the noir crime novel -- the metaphors, the hopelessness, the resignation. That it takes place in the future just accentuates the feeling of doom. The "memory box" that debuts toward the end is one of the most terrifying devices in literature, up there with the scuttling red crabs at the end of Wells' The Time Machine. Oh, the economy in this book is also based on karma. Signs of things to come?