Conrad Metcalf
Created by Johnathan Lethem

"The subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket."
--Raymond Chandler

"Tell him next time he wants to talk to me, don't send a marsupial."
- Conrad offers some thugs some advice on etiquette

Hardboiled private "inquisitor" CONRAD METCALF made his debut in 1995's Gun, With Occasional Music, a wide-open sci-fi spoof/parody/tribute to the private eye genre, where gun-toting kangaroos do indeed figure into the action. Conrad's a stubborn, cynical 21st century gumshoe. It's a pretty wonky future we're talking about here, with genetic upgrades prowling the streets (one local mobster employs kangaroos as muscle) and everyone toting "karma cards" (cops have the right to deduct demerit points).

Newsweek loved Gun, With Occasional Music, calling it "a dazzling debut", "bitterly funny hard-boiled sci-fi", a brilliant cross between Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick, who Newsweek refers to as "...Chandler's dark twin, a man who couldn't write his way out of a wet paper sack."

Lethem has since blessed us with another bizarre, but decidely more earthbound P.I., Lionel Essrog.

NOVEL

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"...and I'll tell you right out that I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."