Michael Tracy Blair

The Alien Abduction Murder Mystery Michael Tracy Blair

This is a murder-mystery detective story with traditional trappings in the style of Hammett and Chandler, but with some decidedly modern--even post-modern--twists. The protagonist is a semiotic anthropologist rather than your usual detective; he's got the standard whiskey and cigarettes habits, but the booze is a high-end single-malt and the hand-rolled cigarettes often have marijuana in them. There's the guy's girl, too--this is a much a love story as a detective tale--but she's not about to conform to the genre's female-sidekick requirements. The book is filled with aliens, but they're not all from outer space. The protagonists have to try and figure out the workings of memory, the meaning of deserts, why murder seems to be following people who think they've met beings from another world.