Talking gorillas and modern witches? A great read!

---

Product Description

The truth has always depended on your point of view.

By 2024, the great American melting pot has become the great media buffet. Step right up and take what you want! Are you a gay man? Great, you'll want to be sure and catch all the fun on the five channels of the Lambda network, now featuring the hit comedy My Three Dads, and The New Erotic Adventures of Superman. Oh, I'm sorry, you meant to say that you're a fundamentalist Baptist? No problem. Just tune in to the Baptist News Network for all your information needs, and don't miss a minute of our family-friendly sitcoms—programming with a moral and spiritual message! And don't forget; now there's BNN for the classroom, proudly beaming in to Baptist Schools across the country! A Wiccan? No problem, our news agency puts out a show that caters just to your interests -- environmental issues, psychic phenomena, and the secrets to casting love spells that really work! And I'm sure your children watch every episode of Xarena the Cheerleader Witch! Nation of Islam? Great! I know you don't miss a single…

Yes, we live in a media and information utopia, where every subculture can have the news told from their point of view, entertainment that speaks to their beliefs, and a private education system that teaches their way of thinking. Of course, this does lead to some minor communications problems between people from different subcultures. Like on the police force. There's that nice Baptist officer who was raised to believe that the witches are all devil worshipers. I wonder what will happen when he's finally sent out on a case with that Wiccan crime scene technician. You know, the one who thinks that all Baptists are patriarchal rapers of the environment.

The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse: It's Sunday the 8th of September, 2024. A wiccan journalist investigates the disappearance of a member of her coven, while a black police detective races to solve a series of occult crimes, and a gay PI searches for his missing psychic partner. A Baptist teenager wonders about girls, video games, and why the CIA seems to be cloning him. A televangelist plans a run for the presidency, while a Christian Rock Star engages in Byzantine political maneuvering to block him, and a Cherokee Shaman tries to juggle the demands of the spirit fathers with the demands of the American legal system. And then there's the Artist, with his intricate, baroque plans for revenge.

Eleven points of view. Eight interwoven plot lines. Six days. One mystery.

The truth has always depended on your point of view.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #863073 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"A Fabulous romp—with some sharp edges." -- Nicola Griffith

"Hartman weaves an intriguing web with numerous well-defined characters. The background world is both funny and scarily possible." -- The Denver Post, June 27, 1999

"There's a great SF premise here…the writing is tight, the drama tense." -- Locus

The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse, by Keith Hartman is a first novel that combines a number of different elements in a world where differences are approaching a flash point of conflict.... Hartman weaves an intriguing web with numerous well-defined characters. The background world is both funny and scarily possible. -- Fred Cleaver, The Denver Post, June 27, 1999

First-time novelist Hartman does a surprisingly good job of juggling viewpoints as the delightfully twisted plot unwinds. -- Locus, April 1999

If you can get past the unwieldy (and rather too cutesy) title, there's a fine debut novel by Keith Hartman. What kind of novel I'm at a little of a loss to say. Equal arguments can be made that it's a police procedural, a contemporary Wiccan fantasy, a gay PI novel, a near future sf thriller, a novel of social commentary, and even, in the sections from the point of view of one character, a YA coming of age story.

In the end, it's a bit of them all, I suppose, which is part of what made me enjoy it so much. I love a book that breaks down the walls between genres, that just tells a story, the author trusting himself and the story enough to let it go wherever it leads him.

The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse is, like it's title, a somewhat busy book, but there's enough payoff in characterization, story, and ideas to make the trip through its pages a real pleasure. -- Charles de Lint, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1999

This is wonderful first novel by an exciting new author. I look forward to seeing more of his work." -- Lee Killough

Review
"This is a wonderful first novel by an exciting new author."

"There's a great SF premise here... the writing is tight, the drama tense."

"It's not often you encounter a book that is PI novel and procedural, science fiction near-future satire, fantasy and coming-of-age story all rolled into one. That mixture sounds like a recipe for disaster: surely, you assume, this is too much to cram into one modestly-sized novel. What a refreshing pleasure it is, then, to discover that this book succeeds in all of these areas.

Lots of novels have wildly complimentary cover blurbs, though few print as many as this book, or at such length, and few have so many blurbs from top-notch authors (Nancy Kress, Mike Resnick and especially Charles de Lint, to name just three). Fewer still deserve all that praise. For this rare gem, Hartman deserves all that praise and more."

"Hartman's characters are smart; his world-building is broad, convincing, and exciting; his choice of detail is exquisite. Compelling and engrossing, this book grabbed me and didn't let go until long after the end."

From the Publisher
This new edition features extensive interior artwork.

---

Customer Reviews

Can't wait for the sequel!
This was one of my favorite books of last year. It has an amazing number of viewpoints yet somehow all the pieces fit together beautifully. Keith Hartman creates a fascinating near-future world and peoples it with wonderfully diverse characters from the gay male detective, to Wiccans, to a rebellious Baptist teen who unknowingly could cause riots, death and destruction on a large scale. The story is suspenseful, humorous, and in the end makes you think hard about where our society is now and where it may be heading. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel!

One of the wittiest debut novels in years.
For the record, I hate Keith Hartman. I've never met the guy, don't know much about him, but what I do know is this: His debut novel, The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse, is better than any first novel has a right to be. Like anyone else with aspirations of writing the Great American Novel, I get royally ticked any time someone else does so, especially on their first try.

And this is easily the best debut genre novel in years. Set in a future Atlanta (where magic, be it Christian, Native American or Wiccan, is commonplace), Gumshoe offers us more protagonists than I've seen in a while, and gives them amazingly unique voices, from the Witch (who works as a reporter during the day) to the Chosen (Benji, a teen who believes that God has chosen him as the butt of every cosmic joke), to the Lunatic (a Cherokee shaman who wonders why the totems she sees are as likely to look like Bugs Bunny or aliens from Star Trek as bears and monkeys). Having eleven (yes, eleven!) characters narrate in the first person is an amazing feat for any writer to pull off. The fact that Hartman manages to give them unique voice (I quite honestly didn't have to even look at the chapter headings after a while) is astounding.

The plot? Well, we've got the Cherokee, attempting to get the United States to uphold the Supreme Court rulings of the early 19th century granting them North Georgia. We've got a gumshoe with some serious issues. We've got a Southern Baptist senator/televangelist who argues about a devil-worshiping anti-Christian conspiracy perpetrated by everyone from Jews to Wiccans to Unitarians (and if he can't find evidence of the conspiracy, he'll fake it). We've got a dead body in a graveyard that might have been carved up by Wiccans, or maybe by Christians. We've got the witch/investigative journalist looking into the mystery, as well as the Baptist News Network and the regular Atlanta police force. And we've got a missing psychic private eye who works with a number of these characters. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's amazing isn't the disparate plot elements; it's that Hartman manages to make them all work.

Thick as it is in characters and plot, where Gumshoe really shines is as a social commentary. Although Hartman is coming from the left in general, he's not above poking fun at the excesses of anyone, ranging from homophobes who are willing to overlook their stance against abortion upon hearing that the fetus has tested positive for the "gay gene," to art snobs who are so caught up in their own pretentious world, they're incapable of recognizing real art when they see it. But for all the satire and commentary, Hartman gives us genuine characters -- everyone, from the Baptists to the Quakers, the homosexuals to the heterosexuals, the Wiccans to the Cherokee, is portrayed as an individual, not just another icon in a group. And the world itself is fully believable, every little image extrapolated from contemporary society, with some absolutely brilliant visions of a future America. The little touches -- a vending machine that offers brie and watercress sandwiches, a bondage-themed gym using a rack for pull-downs -- override whatever touches of cliche (references to the Stallone and Heston presidencies) that creep in.

This is not a book for the faint of heart (the graveyard mutilation, as well as some of the later crime sequences, is easily gross enough to fit into a Laurell K Hamilton novel), nor for those who might be easily offended, but if you want a great read and/or a book that actually makes you think (even while making you laugh out loud), this is a damned good novel.

Two final caveats: First, the editing, frankly, was pretty atrocious in the opening chapter or two -- once you get past the third chapter, the grammar seems to have righted itself. Also, do not start this on a worknight, as it will keep you up all night reading.

Spell Casting or Politics?
Every once in a while one finds a book that is genuinely surprising. 'The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse' is a tale that manages to break every rule and still be not just a great first novel, but a great piece of detective fiction, period. The setting is Atlanta in 2025, a city divided along religious and sexual preference lines. Magic works and shamans coexist with high technology. Fundamentalists have their own political party and television shows are available in several grades of sex and violence. Fortunately for the reader, people still murder each other.

The first victim was already dead - for several months. The desecrated remains are found in a graveyard, crucified upside-down, with signs of a magical ritual all about. Detective Megan Strand finds herself in the midst of an ugly crime with the Baptist News Network screaming about a Satanic plot to take over the world. But the next crimes are murders, one after the other. And each has the overtones of witchcraft and Satanism. The large fundamentalist segment of Atlanta seethes with rumor and panic.

If Wiccans are suspects, they are also victims, and several members of a coven turn up dead or missing. One of these is Jen Gray, who is the partner of P.I. Drew Parker. Parker begins to investigate and finds a trail that leads to the hit religious singer Justin Weir. It also leads the P.I. into the hands of Ice-in-Summer, a Cherokee Shaman who has some very strange plans for the detective. Fleeing through this chaos are two teenagers, Benji Danvers and Summer Jacobs, one a Baptist and the other a Wiccan. Benji has somehow drawn the attention of an unidentified group of agents (Men In Black Suits) and Summer helps to keep him one step ahead of an unknown fate.

Lest I forget, the primary cast also includes a mad artist, a senator with dubious ethics, the aforementioned singer, and a news witch. For Hartman these are not just players on a stage, but active participants. Each takes turn after turn at first person narrative and it can truly be said that this is a novel with no main character. For all that I dislike this kind of shifting viewpoint, Keith Hartmann manages to make a great success of it, rarely allowing the possibility of narrative confusion. Here the technique creates a baroque plot that is in perpetual motion and still manages to create a great deal of connection with the characters. This tale is a great success, whatever its genre is, and I am anxious to read the sequel.