Imagine a fast-moving computer game set in the black-and-white environment of a 1940s detective movie and you'll begin to get some idea of the mixed metaphors that fill the air in K.W. Jeter's difficult but ultimately rewarding new futuristic thriller.

Jeter, who also writes a series of novels based on the popular Blade Runner film about apocalyptic Los Angeles, centers Noir in that same city, now a dark jewel of the dominant Pacific Rim. A detective named McNihil (yes, you got it) has had his eyes surgically altered so that everything looks like an early Bogart movie to him. "Gray newspapers with significant headlines--'Dewey Defeats Truman,''Pearl Harbor Bombed'--moldered in the gutters, or were nudged along the broken sidewalks by the same night wind that cut through McNihil's jacket," Jeter writes about the scene of a plane crash where the detective has been summoned by a corporate villain. A top young executive has been murdered, and McNihil is arm-twisted into tracking down the dead man's missing "prowler"--a computer simulation that roams the world like an electronic ghost.

Aided by a young woman called November, whose fingertips are alive with lethal magnetic currents, McNihil brings his--and Jeter's--unique noir vision to bear on a world that for all its weirdness is the ultimately believable extension of our present-day nightmares. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
A master of dark visions, Jeter (Blade Runner: Replicant Night) delivers his most difficult and intellectually ambitious novel to date. In a near-future world where the poor are entirely disenfranchised and white-collar employees live and work themselves to death in tiny, randomly assigned cubicles, the super-wealthy seek vicarious, perverse, cybernetically enhanced thrills on the streets of Los Angeles. Repulsed by the era he's forced to live in, McNihil, a retired cop with a violent past, has had his eyes surgically altered so that he sees everything through a computer-generated overlay that simulates the black-and-white world of the hard-boiled detective films of the 1930s. When Harrisch, an executive with a powerful multinational corporation, tries to hire him to solve a murder and track down the deceased's missing "prowler," a computerized simulation of the dead man, McNihil refuses, only to find himself blackmailed into compliance. Aided by a gutsy young operative named November, McNihil uncovers a complex web of lies and violence, a world where nothing is what it seems and even the dead have power. Jeter is a fine prose stylist, but some will find his knotted, intensely metaphoric language slow going. Equally problematic is his tendency to assume in his reader a sophisticated knowledge of the conventions of both the noir thrillers of the 1930s and contemporary cyberpunk SF. Frequently, his characters seem to operate in an evocative semi-vacuum, the facts needed to explain the plot having been mysteriously elided from the narrative. This is a difficult, eccentric and rewarding novel, an SF equivalent, perhaps, of The Name of the Rose. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Gerald Jonas
...Jeter accomplishes his goal of updating the genre, and he does so with commendable energy and imagination.


From Kirkus Reviews
Another grimly dystopian, futuristic puzzler from the author of Blade Runner 2 (1995), etc. By the mid-21st century, the California coast is one vast city known as the Gloss, where it's perfectly okay to murder illegal immigrants so long as you notify the police beforehand. A DynaZauber junior-exec, William Travelt, lies dead. Chief-exec Harrisch tries to persuade ex-Collection. Agency (information police) operative McNihil his name sets the mood of the bookto investigate. But McNihilhe's had his eyes modified so he sees everything through a computer overlay based on 1930s crime noir moviessuspects a trap, and refuses. He talks things over with his dead wife (she's ``indeadted,'' revivified so she can pay off the huge debts she left behind). He also learns that Travelt had a ``prowler,'' an information-collecting computer simulation, that's disappeared along with a copy of everything that Travelt knew, including the corporate secret that Harrisch wants McNihil to recover. And McNihil's being followed by November, another operative indebted to DynaZauber. Eventually, of course, McNihil finds himself with no choice but to comply with the demands of Harrisch, whose real intention is to control everyone by manipulating the chemistry of addiction in the brain. Even if McNihil can figure things out, hell have to be dead before he can defeat Harrisch. By turns impressive, knowing, heavy, strained, and suffocating. Overall, it doesn't add up to anything in particular, but its an uncommon experience nonetheless. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Jeter is an exhilarating writer who always seems to have another rabbit to pull out of his hat....[He] accomplishes his goal of updating the genre, and he does so with commendable energy and imagination."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A master of dark visions, Jeter delivers his most...ambitious book to date....an SF equivalent, perhaps, of The Name of the Rose."
--Publishers Weekly

"Impressive."
--Locus


From the Paperback edition.


Book Description
In his acclaimed novels Dr. Adder, The Glass Hammer, and the Blade Runner books, K.W. Jeter masterfully re-created the grim and gritty world of Ridley Scott's classic science fiction film masterpiece. Now Jeter returns with a startling and stylish new vision of the future as only he could imagine it, a dark and disturbing universe that can be described with one word... Welcome to the Pacific Rim, the new center of the civilized world. As the rest of the planet sinks toward economic and social disaster, the cities on the coast have become a neon-lit, high-tech paradise. Chief among them is Los Angeles, a sparkling metropolis attracting lost souls from across a shattered continent. But beneath the sleek surface lies a labyrinthine underground feeding on the darkest human desires. Here the wealthy seek forbidden thrills through an anonymous on-line computer system that makes use of prowlers--masked simulations of human users programmed to delve into the most taboo of the hard-core sexual underworld and bring back exotic and erotic experiences to their safeguarded users. For most people, the prowlers are a way to indulge in their wildest sexual fantasies. But for others, they are something far more dangerous.When a young executive of one of the world's most powerful corporations is found brutally slain, a retired ex-cop is called in to find his missing prowler. The corporation believes the young man's prowler is still "alive" and they want it found, but they don't care to reveal why.McNihil was an information cop forced into early retirement. He knows he is walking straight into a trap, but he has no choice. He must descend into the noir underground, his only companion a ruthless female operative named November who has a desperate agenda of her own. Together they will uncover a web of evil far more extensive than McNihil ever imagined...a vast conspiracy that threatens to blur forever the line between the sane safety of the daylight world and the dark, dangerous world of noir.Noir is K.W. Jeter at his very best, a dazzling and inventive futuristic drama of mystery, menace, and sexual terror set in a society of glitter and sinister darkness in which no one can be trusted and everything is far worse than it seems.


From the Publisher
Praise for The Edge of Human, a Blade Runner novel by K.W. Jeter:"A serious novel, well written and imaginative...It remains faithful to its roots and becomes a story Jeter can call his own."
--The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction"Jeter fully exploits the Dickian paradoxes of illusion vs. reality, man vs. machine, that the film only hinted at."
--San Francisco Chronicle "A really rare animal...Highly recommended for anyone looking for a good read."
--The Commercial Appeal, Memphis "A good, fast-moving story...Jeter also plays with readers' heads the way that [Philip K.] Dick loved to."
--The Orlando Sentinel


From the Inside Flap
In his acclaimed novels Dr. Adder, The Glass Hammer, and the Blade Runner books, K.W. Jeter masterfully re-created the grim and gritty world of Ridley Scott's classic science fiction film masterpiece.  Now Jeter returns with a startling and stylish new vision of the future as only he could imagine it, a dark and disturbing universe that can be described with one word...  

Welcome to the Pacific Rim, the new center of the civilized world.  As the rest of the planet sinks toward economic and social disaster, the cities on the coast have become a neon-lit, high-tech paradise.  Chief among them is Los Angeles, a sparkling metropolis attracting lost souls from across a shattered continent.  

But beneath the sleek surface lies a labyrinthine underground feeding on the darkest human desires.  Here the wealthy seek forbidden thrills through an anonymous on-line computer system that makes use of prowlers--masked simulations of human users programmed to delve into the most taboo of the hard-core sexual underworld and bring back exotic and erotic experiences to their safeguarded users.  For most people, the prowlers are a way to indulge in their wildest sexual fantasies.  But for others, they are something far more dangerous.

When a young executive of one of the world's most powerful corporations is found brutally slain, a retired ex-cop is called in to find his missing prowler.  The corporation believes the young man's prowler is still "alive" and they want it found, but they don't care to reveal why.

McNihil was an information cop forced into early retirement.  He knows he is walking straight into a trap, but he has no choice.  He must descend into the noir underground, his only companion a ruthless female operative named November who has a desperate agenda of her own.  Together they will uncover a web of evil far more extensive than McNihil ever imagined...a vast conspiracy that threatens to blur forever the line between the sane safety of the daylight world and the dark, dangerous world of noir.

Noir is K.W. Jeter at his very best, a dazzling and inventive futuristic drama of mystery, menace, and sexual terror set in a society of glitter and sinister darkness in which no one can be trusted and everything is far worse than it seems.  

ANNOTATION

Here wealthy men and women seek forbidden thrills through a system that enables them to indulge safely and anonymously in their wildest fantasies through the use of computerized simulations known as prowlers. Then a young executive at one of the world's most powerful corporations is brutally slain and an ex-information cop named McNihil is called in to find the dead man's still "living" prowler.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Welcome to the Pacific Rim, the new center of the civilized world. As the rest of the planet sinks toward economic and social disaster, the cities on the coust have become a neon-lit, high-tech paradise. Chief among them is Los Angeles, a sparkling metropolis attracting lost souls from across a shuttered continent. But beneath the sleek surface lies a labyrinthine underground feeding on the darkest human desires. Here the wealthy seek forbidden thrills through an anonymous on-line computer system that makes use of prowlers - masked simulations of human users programmed to delve into the most taboo of the hard-core sexual underworld and bring back exotic and erotic experiences to their safeguarded users. When a young executive of one of the world's most powerful corporations is found brutally stain, a retired ex-cop is called in to find his missing prowler. McNihil was an information cop forced into early retirement. He knows he is walking straight into a trap, but he has no choice. He must descend into the noir underground, his only companion a ruthless female operative named November who has a desperate agenda of her own.

SYNOPSIS

Although K. W. Jeter is perhaps best known for his popular Star Wars novels and his vivid re-creations of Ridley Scott's The Blade Runner, Jeter has also been applauded for his cutting-edge stand-alone science fiction. Now Jeter offers Noir, a powerful vision of the future that is as bleak and haunting as the title suggests. Noir is a high-tech murder mystery set in a future L.A. that involves corporate intrigue, greed, and Jeter's unparalleled imagination and stylistic skill.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

A master of dark visions, Jeter (Blade Runner: Replicant Night) delivers his most difficult and intellectually ambitious novel to date. In a near-future world where the poor are entirely disenfranchised and white-collar employees live and work themselves to death in tiny, randomly assigned cubicles, the super-wealthy seek vicarious, perverse, cybernetically enhanced thrills on the streets of Los Angeles. Repulsed by the era he's forced to live in, McNihil, a retired cop with a violent past, has had his eyes surgically altered so that he sees everything through a computer-generated overlay that simulates the black-and-white world of the hard-boiled detective films of the 1930s. When Harrisch, an executive with a powerful multinational corporation, tries to hire him to solve a murder and track down the deceased's missing "prowler," a computerized simulation of the dead man, McNihil refuses, only to find himself blackmailed into compliance. Aided by a gutsy young operative named November, McNihil uncovers a complex web of lies and violence, a world where nothing is what it seems and even the dead have power. Jeter is a fine prose stylist, but some will find his knotted, intensely metaphoric language slow going. Equally problematic is his tendency to assume in his reader a sophisticated knowledge of the conventions of both the noir thrillers of the 1930s and contemporary cyberpunk SF. Frequently, his characters seem to operate in an evocative semi-vacuum, the facts needed to explain the plot having been mysteriously elided from the narrative. This is a difficult, eccentric and rewarding novel, an SF equivalent, perhaps, of The Name of the Rose. (Nov.)

Tom Piccirilli - Tom Piccirilli, bn.com

A richly textured novel that combines expert characterization, a highly refined narrative voice, and fascinating high-tech insights of a heinous age, K. W. Jeter's Noir, is a provocative portrayal of a society on the rim of devastation. After authoring two Blade Runner novels The Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night), Jeter became widely acknowledged not only as a successor of Philip K. Dick but also as the heir to Ridley Scott's "The Blade Runner" vision, the filmed version of Dick's classic novella" Do Androids Dream Electric ? Although extremely flattering, the parallels here are unfair and confining to Jeter, in that Noir demonstrates the author's own singularly original and fiercely atmospheric style, which uses a lyrical language to further underscore the bleak ugliness of a future Los Angeles.

McNihil is an ex-information cop recalled to duty by the powerful DynaZauber corporation, which wants McNihil to investigate the murder of a young executive, William Travelt. A number of senior execs, led by the inhumanly stoic Harrisch, inveigle McNihil into using his "talents" on the corpse: McNihil is capable of such close scrutiny that he's able to learn information by smelling or touching the skin of a dead man.

McNihil lives in a dual world; he views reality through modified, computer-enhanced eyes that filter everything through an overlay of '30s and '40s film noir. A beautiful "cube bunny" becomes Ida Lupino, and though McNihil prefers this movie-reality vision, he pays a heavy price -- he will never see the sunlight again.

Realizing that Harrisch and the other execs are all part of Travelt's murder, McNihil and a woman named November, who may or may not work for the corporation, learn that the conspiracy concerns "prowlers" -- computer-simulated replicants of wealthy individuals that are capable of experiencing the most extreme and taboo sexual circumstances without fear for their own true selves. November interviews at length McNihil's dead wife, who is one of the "indeadted" -- she lives on even though she has donated vital organs (including her corneas, which leaves her with little black X's in the center of her eyes). The dead wife gives cryptic, vague warnings that will soon come to pass. Eventually it becomes clear that Travelt's prowler still exists and knows every corporate secret Travelt himself knew. Now DynaZauber will stop at nothing to get it back.

In Noir, Jeter has created a black and bitter world of high technology that comprises the walking dead, online religion, and societal catastrophe. The lack of compassion or a true sense of community in the Gloss (Greater Los Angeles area) is disaffecting and disconcerting; McNihil's wife remains nameless, known only as "the dead wife" throughout the novel, and other secondary characters are called simply "the professional child" and "the big dark shape." This anonymity and lack of acknowledgment adds a sense of disquiet and unease that piles upon itself like the trash heaps and human refuse littering the streets.

With great ingenuity and proficient command of the milieu he has set, Jeter winds these elements together so subtly that the reader isn't completely aware that the diversified threads are twining together; Jeter forms a tightly knit tale of darkness, conspiracy, and dystopia that demonstrates how quickly life can become valueless when it is lost in an engine of profit. The disturbing mood and outstanding mixture of these characters and events is handled with poetic and adept precision of detail that makes this grim yet stimulating noir novel work so well as an awe-inspiring world of ominous darkness.

Gerald Jonas

. . .[I]n general Jeter accomplishes his goal of updating the genre, and he does so with commendable energy and imagination. -- The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

Another grimly dystopian, futuristic puzzler from the author of Blade Runner 2 (1995). By the mid-21st century, the California coast is one vast city known as the Gloss, where it's perfectly okay to murder illegal immigrants so long as you notify the police beforehand. A DynaZauber junior-exec, William Travelt, lies dead. Chief-exec Harrisch tries to persuade ex-Collection. Agency (information police) operative McNihil—-his name sets the mood of the book—-to investigate. But McNihil—-he's had his eyes modified so he sees everything through a computer overlay based on 1930s crime noir movies—-suspects a trap, and refuses. He talks things over with his dead wife (she's "indeadted," revivified so she can pay off the huge debts she left behind). He also learns that Travelt had a "prowler," an information-collecting computer simulation, that's disappeared along with a copy of everything that Travelt knew, including the corporate secret that Harrisch wants McNihil to recover. And McNihil's being followed by November, another operative indebted to DynaZauber. Eventually, of course, McNihil finds himself with no choice but to comply with the demands of Harrisch, whose real intention is to control everyone by manipulating the chemistry of addiction in the brain. Even if McNihil can figure things out, he'll have to be dead before he can defeat Harrisch. By turns impressive, knowing, heavy, strained, and suffocating. Overall, it doesn't add up to anything in particular, but it's an uncommon experience nonetheless.