brief review right now.
Alan Dean Foster has written several short stories and released a collection set in the "Montezuma Strip" before - an area of the Southwest as projected about 80? years into the future (it's been described as a nightmarish future ("first world tech, third world wages" - those parts seem accurate; his politics are -somewhat- more similar to mine than, say, Robert Heinlein's are...) - but based on this novel set in the Strip, anyway... if anything, Foster seems optimistic- and his Inspector likable for much, including his refusal to be cynical about the prospects of the people on his beat.
(This isn't at all a political tract masquerading as a novel; those are qualities I noticed, though.)
For the plot - the wife and daughter of a murder victim not only don't want to be found (to identify the body), but are - demonstrative about it. :) (Well... view the back cover sometime.)
A review
here - though I think differently than the reviewer about one or two things, would check that, since by now I'm sleepy enough "and have not the time to make this briefer" (to paraphrase.) (now anyway)
