Private investigator Chase Maxwell is about to lose the rent in a poker game when a beautiful, mysterious woman walks into his life. He learns too late that his new employer, Zoe Domingo, is a chimera, a "critter," a genetically-engineered mix of human and animal genes. Chimeras have no rights--they are animals, property--and Zoe has no protection now that her human mentor has been murdered. Maxwell must help Zoe find the murderer, a relentless and powerful enemy, before they, too, are killed.

The police believe that Zoe killed her mentor, Janna. She wants Max to prove her innocence because she insists the robo-cops murdered her liberator. The investigation quickly turns ugly and soon everyone chases after Max and Zoe because they want a powerful earring that Janna gave to her. With no place to hide or run, Max and Zoe are in deep trouble. If they somehow live, they probably will spend a few decades in jail.

Chase Maxwell is a former UN security man, who left that job after an assignment went bad. He retains one useful piece of tech: an Infinite Pocket, an area of warped space attached to his arm, in which he can apparently store things of nearly arbitrary size. Including his gun, which has a similar bit of tech: a sort of "Infinite Magazine." He's down on his luck when the jaguar-human hybrid Zoe asks him to track down her "mother"'s murderer. Janna Gold has just been killed, apparently by berserk "copbots". But the police department is much more likely to finger Zoe for the murder, given the prejudice against "critters."

Max is reluctant to take the case: he doesn't work for critters. But he's in a bit of a bind, so he agrees to help. What follows is a nearly nonstop chase, as Max and Zoe encounter first the police, then a series of people who seem to be peripherally involved: Krista Blake, a police expert who takes a sudden shine to Max; Amos Tauber, an advocate for full rights for both "critters" and Artificial Intelligences; and Oberon Chain, the head of a high-tech company who is also an AI rights crusader. When some of these people begin to get murdered as well, Max and Zoe become the designated suspects. At the same time, Max is realizing that his feelings for Zoe may be a lot deeper than its prudent for a human to have with respect to a critter.

From there we encounter a number of different aspects of this future, such as the indentured service camps that have replaced jails; and the "critter" side of town, complete with riots and reverse prejudice against "skins" (ordinary humans); plus scenes of critters "werewolfing": suddenly going berserk and killing everybody in sight; as well as a very well put argument about the ethics of downloading human brains into computers, and vice versa.

Chimera is set in that science fictional rarity, a libertarian dystopia. Despite the grim setting, it's a lot of fun, combining all the elements of film noir-- a tough and beautiful damsel in distress, narration by a wisecracking private detective, and complex conspiracies-- with an effortless flow of sf invention: Infinite Pockets, copbots, werewolfing, Crittertown, and much more. The style may owe a lot to Chandler and Hammett, but the overall feel is reminiscent of early Heinlein or John Varley.

Will Shetterly (born 1955) is an American fantasy and comic book writer best-known for his novel Dogland (1997). The novel was inspired by his childhood at the tourist attraction Dog Land owned by his parents. He won the Minnesota Book Award for Fantasy & Science Fiction for his novel Elsewhere (1991), and was a finalist with Nevernever (1993). Chimera was published in 2000,

-- T.J. Powers