This was a quick read, kind of disposable, but definitely entertaining. For whatever reason, this was exactly the book I was in the mood to read this week, so it gets extra points for sheer readability. The story itself is pretty basic - the setting is a futuristic society where genetic engineering has created half-breed creatures called "chimeras", part human and part animal. These creatures are basically slaves by another name. Throw together a murder mystery plot and a love story between a human private eye and his cat-girl client, and you've got yourself a good time. ( )

A very enjoyable light read - an adventure/mystery set in a cyberpunk-y near future where gene-spliced hybrid human/animals have become an underclass. I felt like it would make a fun movie.
A beautiful part-cat woman pressures a hard-boiled gambling detective to take her on as a client. Her patron, an activist and scientist in favor of 'chimera' rights, has been murdered - and she could be framed for the crime.
While I liked reading it, I don't feel like it's one of those stories that will stick with me forever...

And, sorry, but I have got to bitch about the cover art. Does the woman on that cover look to you like she has "Mayan cheekbones, a wide nose, and copper-colored skin"? Not to me she doesn't. For that matter, she's not wearing a "short" jumpsuit either, although it IS iridescent green, and her boots are sort of silver, as described in the book.

( )

PI Max knows Zoe--a stunning cat/woman hybrid with no legal rights, no alibi, and precious little cash--is trouble from the minute she interrupts his poker game. But she's hidden something up his sleeve that could change the world in the next two months . . . or get them killed in the next two hours.

Tough, sexy, and lean, this book marries leftist politics with hard-boiled action tropes. The world he imagines, a radically decentralized US in which California has embraced a libertarian ethic, sparkles with wickedly satiric details. The pacing is rapid, full of fight-and-flight scenes that keep you turning pages. If there's a weak spot it's in the characterization--Shetterly keeps you firmly in the first-person narrator's head, and Max is not the noticing type when it comes to the subtleties of other people's emotions. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?ID=110 ( )