In a Family Way: A Bill Damen Mystery

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially its accurate descriptions of my beloved San Francisco streets and neighborhoods. There's some irritating carelessness in the writing: the police address the flat-broke Bill Damen as "Mr. Damen" and his rich cousin, who lives in a mansion, as "Chris"; Bill cleans up all the evidence of an attack on his car, including vacuuming the interior, then reports the crime to the police; "Cole let his crossed leg fall to the floor with a thump"--suspect Calder meant Cole's *foot* fell to the floor; etc. In all cases, any decent editor would have caught and corrected these things. The main characters, Bill and his girlfriend Clem, are well drawn and likable, and the story is unusual and interesting. All in all, it's more fun and more pleasing than a lot of the overly hyped books on the NYTBSL.

Just when we were nearly sure that top cameraman slash biotech private eye Bill Damen (like "Amen" with a D stuck in front of it) was actually another inquisitive San Francisco gay man, author James Calder gets him a girlfriend, the superspunky, supersexy, long legged American Beauty "Clem." Yes. Clem like Clementine. Calder's not so good with names, but you can always trust him to provide a mind-blowing plot involving genes and the mad scientists who think up ways to distort them and the capitalist types who exploit the science to buy themselves huge mansions in Hillsborough. The tycoon in this book is Bill's own uncle Cole Claypool, head of a large construction engineering firm in the Bay Area that provides the "best erections in town" as he boasts. Sixty years old on the day the novel opens, Cole Claypool is still magnificently attractive to women and as determined as Soames Forsyte to preserve the family line, even if it means skirting close to the law. Cole Claypool (say that name five times fast if you can!) is a typical Calder protagonist, a free-thinking big spending bully who spreads a blight all over the land, and it's up to little fellows like Bill Damen to clean up the mess after him. Cole's son Chris is busy putting together details of a huge Claypool project in Jakarta, and his wife, Janet, is spending the weekend with her family, and thus their little daughter, Margy (with a hard "g") is left in the hands of a nanny, Ulla, when she disappears, her body to be found in a park horribly murdered. Did Margaret know too much? But what? She was only three and a half! Was her death tied to the death of Helen, her "sister," who had died of empysema at age six, much earlier in Claypool family annals? But how? She didn't even know Helen! Or did she? Anyone who's read any of the Bill Damen mysteries knows that the human genome is the trickiest and most valuable of human inventions, more sought after than blood diamonds and more alluring to the evil.

The Bill Damen mysteries give a smart, scientific twist to the classic San Francisco noir genre, and in this latest installment Calder grafts some serious questions about genetic engineering and the corruptions of power onto a grabbing whodunnit I had a hard time putting down. The characters are well-observed and cleanly drawn, from the sinister patriarch Cole Claypool to the shadowy Dr. Sabell, working at the margins of science and morality in his rogue lab to unlock the secrets of life itself. My favorite addition to the series though is Clem. Sassy, brainy, and every inch Bill's equal, she's ripe for a series of her own. All in all, a great read, as thought-provoking as it is fun.