9tail Fox

I read this book in a week. It was hard to put down and thoroughly enjoyable. The book is a murder mystery, in the hard-boiled detective style. Bobby Zha is a SFPD officer based in Chinatown, more at home with vagrants and homeless people than the members of the force. So far, so good. The book twists by having the protagonist killed within the first few chapters. He then has to solve his own murder. Sweet setup. The Nine Tail Fox of the title is a Chinese mystical creature, and it is the conceit of the book that such a creature is real. There isn't much other SF or Fantasy than that. The rest of the book is a straight-up detective novel, tightly plotted and well written. To his credit, the author writes about a hard-boiled hero who is a real SOB. The hero's journey in the book is as much about realizing and resolving that character flaw as it about solving the crime. Both threads of the story work. I liked that the book was set in San Francisco. The city was a real part of the story, with settings in Chinatown, Russian Hill and elsewhere, all of them detailed. Chinatown in particular comes off in a believable way, and doesn't feel like the tourist postcard version. Snarky comments abound, for example one about tourists who come looking for the Beats, yet shop at Borders. Truly delightful. Recommended. From Night Shade Books.

Man. I traveled from Southern Arizona to Wash D.C. today and spent my time with Mr. Grimwood. Thankfully, I had a two hour layover in Dallas, where we sat and sweated on the tarmac. I say thankfully, because I had such a damn good book with me, I didn't even realize I was being held hostage by the airlines once again. The time worked out well. I'd read the first three chapters yesterday and then as we crossed the Patomac into Reagan International, I finished the story. Glorious last paragraph which I could tell the author worked, reworked and perfected. I closed the book with a smile. When I bought the book in SLC, it was the cover that grabbed me. Jon Foster did a terrific job, but whatever he achieved was multiplied by the really amazing design work that Claudia did. I keep looking at the cover. I really dig it. I want a cover like that!!! And the book? The story of Bobbi Zha? I'm now a fan of Mr. Grimwood. From the sweeping plot to the subplots to the humanism in the characters, it's the kind of stuff I like to read. I'll read whatever he writes. Did the book have a few problems? Sure. A rough spot here or there, and a question I had left unanswered, but these were really washed aside by raw humanity of the piece and the author's ability to make San Francisco, not just the setting for the novel, but a member of the cast.

Tagline on the cover says: "A dead cop must solve his own murder!" On the back: "... His sudden and unexplained murder leaves his family reeling, and the SFPD bewildered. But nobody is more bewildered than Sergeant Zha, when a nine-tailed celestial fox comes to him at the moment of his death, and tells him he has one chance to put things right." Sounds pretty average paranormal-mystery, right? Only the author's style is more mainstream fiction, with a dollop of magical realism and straight fantasy and a tad of SF (supposedly this takes place in the near-future), and quite a bit of suspense/thriller mixed in. There's also psychological fiction--where we see brief glimpses of the troubled past and relationships of these characters... fragments that add to character, but not at all to plot. There is wish-fulfillment fantasy in that the character wakes in another body that has wealth and power and good-looks (the one big hit to my suspension of disbelief came when he wakes in a body that has been comatose for perhaps two decades and instantly is up and walking--apparently with no atrophied muscles! hmmm!). There are plenty of other things that strain credulity, but they are also magical and mystical, and there is compellingly good writing going on that is satisfying on a level that doesn't want to settle for the tried and true. Life isn't at all explicable and the strangeness and complexities in this tale may confuse, but they also feel right. The mystery is convoluted--involving may disparate elements, many only appearing in passing: a young girl who claims to have killed an intruder, human and animal experimentation, the Russian mob, a US general, missing homeless people, dirty cops, Stalin... Although it may be possible, this doesn't seem to be the kind of mystery one can trace through clues. It's more of the suspense/thriller kind, at times, with fancy watches and name-brand suits, powerful motorcycles and long-range rifles... And then there's the fox, more a tie to the detective's heritage and non-beliefs, than anything. Zha isn't sure what to believe, and neither are we, the readers. But it's a crazy ride, for those who enjoy that sort of thing. For some reason I have a weakness for Courtney's books, even though they are quite atypical and strange... or maybe it's because of that? But they're definitely not for everyone.

Very well written. Great characters. Interesting plotline, which although complicated, got wrapped up neatly at the end. I immediately went looking for other Jon Courtenay Grimwood books.