Cover Image

The mocking program

by Foster, Alan Dean, 1946-

Format: Print Book 2002
Availability: Available at 3 Libraries 3 of 3 copies

Available (3)
Location Collection Call #
Carnegie Library of McKeesport Fiction F FOS
Location  Carnegie Library of McKeesport
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F FOS
 
 
Monroeville Public Library Fiction Foster
Location  Monroeville Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  Foster
 
 
Penn Hills Library Science Fiction FOS SF
Location  Penn Hills Library
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Call Number  FOS SF
 
 

Summary
"Inspector Angel Cardenas has seen plenty of corpses like the one in Quetzal inurb - just another Juan Doe robbed of his cash, cards, internal organs, and then dumped in a gutter. However, Cardenas soon learns this particular murder is anything but ordinary..." "First, the infallible DNA-ID database insists the cadaver is that of two people - local executive George Anderson and a mysterious Texas businessman. Then Anderson's wife and daughter, Surtsey Mockerkin and Katla, turn up missing, their posh suburban home has been retrofitted into a huge time bomb...and at least three mob syndicates from as many continents are competing to capture or kill twelve-year-old Katla." "Who was the dead man, and why is his daughter being hunted? Relying on his training as a nearly telepathic intuit, Inspector Cardenas embarks on a search that leads him from the sex parlors and stimstick clubs of the Strip - where kids are deadly and even music can kill - to an undersea control room where computer crimes are committed by criminal computers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "A couple of decades ago, Foster was known primarily as the author of science fiction and fantasy novels aimed at younger readers, novelizations of movies (Starman, Alien), and installments in popular series (the Star Trek log books, an Alien Nation novel). Over the years, he's broadened his scope, producing original, gripping novels for adults. This story, set not too far in the future, features a police inspector trying to sort out a rather unusual murder: a recently discovered corpse seems to belong to two men. So who's really dead? And how can Angel Cardenas find the truth when everyone connected to the victim(s) appears to have gone missing? The novel has a solid plot, but what makes it interesting is the detailed dialect the author has devised. Like Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, this novel comes with a glossary to help readers translate the characters' slang (a combination of English and Spanish, mostly). Peppered with clever new technology and offbeat characters, the book successfully crosses genres and will appeal to both mystery and sf fans. --David Pitt"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Bestseller Foster (The Dig; Interlopers; etc.) elevates this well-paced, hard-boiled SF police procedural through the use of a highly imaginative setting the sprawling Montezuma Strip, which stretches along the old U.S.-Mexican border and constitutes "the western hemisphere's largest concentration of industry, commerce, assemblage, cutting-edge technology, and trouble." When police inspector Angel Cardenas investigates the case of a male corpse found with most of its internal organs missing ("They'd left the heart. Not much of a demand for hearts these days. Not with good, cheap artificial models flooding the market"), the victim turns out to have had two identities one as a local executive, the other as a Texas businessman. The plot thickens when the victim's booby-trapped house nearly kills Cardenas and his partner. After a few more near escapes, they establish that the corpse's "wife and daughter" are actually Surtsey and Katla Mockerkin, the ex-wife and 12-year-old daughter of crime lord Cleator Mockerkin, who wants them back in (literally) the worst way. By now Cardenas is sufficiently determined to follow them to Central America, aided by his training as an almost telepathic intuit. The amazingly versatile author plays with a full deck of futuristic elements notably, sapient apes led by gorillas and intelligent rogue computers that commit computer crimes. An ambiguous but nonetheless satisfying ending leaves open the possibility of another story about Inspector Cardenas. (Aug. 8) Forecast: A national print publicity campaign that includes the mystery market should pick up plenty of noir readers in addition to Foster fans. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Police -- California -- Los Angeles -- Fiction.
Twenty-first century -- Fiction.
Intuition -- Fiction.
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.
Publisher New York :Warner Books,2002
Language English
Description 279 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN 0446527742
044661307X (pbk.)
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