A Borrowed Man -- Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is an honored SF writer.  He's won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (1996) and been inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (2007).  SFWA named him a Grand Master in 2012.  If you're interested in SF, you know his name and have probably read his work.  His latest book, A Borrowed Man, is an SF mystery novel.

At some unspecified time in the future, when the population of Earth is only one billion (and some would like it to be less), you can go to the library and check out not a book but a "reclone," that is, a cloned human being who is the author of a book you want to discuss.  The reclone in this case is Ern A. Smithe ("with an e," as he keeps telling people), originally an author of mystery novels.  The person who comes to check him out is Colette Coldbrook, whose mother died long ago, whose father has died of an apparent heart attack, and whose brother has been recently murdered.  Colette wants Ern because locked in a safe in her father's lab was one of his (or the original Ern's) books, Murder on Mars.  Colette believes the book is a clue.  Which it is, but not the kind she thinks.

Ern is happy to be checked out because when a library in his time is "weeded," the reclone who hasn't been checked out often enough or recently enough is burned.  Reclones are apparently fully human, but they have no rights and aren't regarded as anything other than property.  He's happy to help solve the mystery if he can, as he wants to be checked out.

He can solve the mystery, and he does, but to say much more about it would spoil a lot of things about the book, so I'll just say that Things Are Not What They Seem.  Ern teams up with a man and a woman (who's a computer whiz, of course), tangles with the law, and even travels to . . . I can say no more.  About the plot, anyway.

I can say a word about Ern's narration and character, however.  As a clone, he has the memories of the original Ern, but he hasn't had the experiences that he remembers.  It's an odd feeling.  He is also forced to speak in the style of his novels, which his creators believed was his normal way of speech.  It isn't, and he laments that throughout the book.  The tone is therefore somewhat dry and flat, though the book is very readable.  There's a lot of dialogue, which will either bother you or please you, depending on your inclinations.

And one other thing:  I have this weird theory that a lot of readers, while they like the mystery in a mystery novel, read the books because of other things.  In A Borrowed Man Wolfe slips in little bits and pieces about his future society throughout the story.  This particular future seems sort of nice on the surface, but just below that, it's a terrifying place.

If you're a Gene Wolfe fan, you've already bought this.  If you're not an SF reader but you'd like something a little different, this would be a good place to look.