The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse

Gumshoe #1

by Keith Hartman

Welcome to 21st century Atlanta. During your stay, depending on your tastes, you can cruise gay midtown (I hear that the Inquisition Health Club has introduced manacles and chains to the aerobics class) or check out the Reverend-Senator Stonewall's headquarters at Freedom Plaza (watch out for the Christian Militia guarding it, though) or attend a sky-clad Wiccan sabbat (by invitation only). Avoid the courthouse, where the Cherokee have turned out in full war-paint to renegotiate a nineteenth-century land deal. Also stay away from all cemeteries, at least until the police find out why someone is disinterring and crucifying corpses.

As you can tell, this is a lively novel, full of intricate plotting and engaging off-beat characters. Among the latter are a gay detective, a Wiccan family, an ambitious televangelist with an eye on the White House, an artist whose medium is flesh and blood, a Cherokee drag queen--and then there's poor Benji, who would just like to make it to his fifteenth birthday, assuming the MIBS don't get him first or his Baptist parents don't ground him for life because his new girlfriend is a witch.

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Science Fiction, LGBT, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Gay

432 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 1999

About the author

Keith Hartman grew up in Huntsville Alabama, where he was a weird little boy who didn't fit in. He went to Princeton University, where he was supposed to study economics and instead blew all his time on theater courses. He then started a PhD in Finance at Duke, before realizing that he just couldn't spend the rest of his life teaching MBA's how to screw each other. So he ran away to be a writer.

His parents were thrilled.

He sold his first short story to a tiny magazine that went out of business, and his first book to Rutgers University, which did not.

He moved to Los Angeles a few years ago to direct low budget movies. It turns out that everyone in Hollywood is stark raving mad.

And Keith fits right in.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has won a plethora of awards. "Different", barely begins to describe it...but not a "bad" different...just an interesting, enticing "different" that only causes you want to read more because you need to see what type characters are going to appear next. The book was written in 1999...I'm reading it in 2023. Not that I doubt that everyone has the ability to deduce that that is a 24-year difference...you may have forgotten that in those 24 years, a lot of the things wrote about here, have changed...yet some elements of the story seem a bit too close to the happenings of today...that is in no way a positive testament. Hartman delves into the Satanic Panic craze of the 80s and 90s that managed to produce a society that is segregated by the self-appointed religious crusaders whose mantra is “ONE Nation Under God” (the emphasis on "One" is the author’s), and everyone else is labeled blasphemers and occultists and devil worshipers. Oh...and the term "gay", for which it seems that there were even genetic tests for...is applied to random groups that I won't mention here. Schools, neighborhoods and almost everything else is regulated and segregated by religious/spiritual practices. A person that is running for the office of the presidency is willing to incite a "holy war," using his Christian Militia to achieve his goals...and of course there are some people who would not only like, but are more than willing, to take him down by whatever means. After we wade through all this, we now find that we have a missing person that has connections to the Gumshoe, the Witch...of the book title. The greater mystery, however, involves the other title character...the corpse. The exhumation and occult-style desecration of the corpse, and a subsequent series of murders with ritualistic elements that leads both the public and the police to deem them satanic in nature. All that, and now we have the question of how a fourteen-year-old boy fits into it all? The Gumshoe, the Witch who by the way...is a transgender Native American Shaman, the Police, the Senator...who is also a preacher...and a host of other characters are in on various parts of this cat-and-mouse race to find the killer, which is where the story gets more interesting. As you have probably figured out if you have plowed through this far, is that it takes every ounce of patience and perseverance to get there...but as I finished, I was glad I stuck with it until the end...otherwise, I would have always wondered. The main things I found hard to deal with had nothing to do with the author's writing abilities or the story. It was the editing...or lack of said editing... was subpar at best. Twenty-four years and NOBODY corrected it??? The second factor is that for the first quarter of the book, I really had no idea what I was reading. I actually had to go back and read the blurb. I hope the author's version of "near-future" is only in his head and has no hope of becoming yours and my reality. The entire idea is nightmare producing...especially as our society comes closer and closer to making this work of fiction, non-fiction.

[Ulysses Dietz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked this a great deal. Well written, clever, fast-paced, a real nail-biter at times. There are moments of genuine darkness, and moments of profound emotion. The very complicated plot could be off-putting if you don't like that sort of thing - as could the multiple first-person POVs. But I was captivated and grew to like all the characters, except for one, who was hateful all the way through.

Set in the future, but not too far in the future, we see an America not unlike what we know today, but more frighteningly polarized and fascinatingly higher tech than now. If there is a central character, it is Drew Parker, a gay detective (whose being gay is treated incidentally, which rather disappointed me), a Wiccan mother of two; a power-hungry Baptist senator; a sleep-deprived cop; an elderly Cherokee shaman; and a skittish fourteen year old named Benji.

If you're an obsessive reader (as I can be sometimes) and try to keep every plot thread separate, you'll be frustrated or dizzy. Just go with the flow and let Hartman's smart narrative keep you on your toes. (Ignore the iffy editing and the sometime inability to use the pronouns "me" and "I" correctly, which seems to be universal now...these are but blips in a really good read.)

[Res · Rating 2 out of 5]

The one where America is so culturally divided that there are Wiccan schools as well as Baptist ones. Drew Parker is a gay private detective, and his partner, Jen, a witch, is missing, and someone digs up a corpse and does something very strange with it.

The future world is drawn in such broad, exaggerated strokes; it might work as an article-length parody, but at novel length, I don't believe it, and as a result, I don't believe most of the characters, either. It doesn't help that the book is made up of first-person narratives from a dozen characters, and the voices just aren't different enough to help me keep track of who's talking.

The powerful, amoral white Christianist male is certainly a fine reflection of something that scares people (me included), but as a villain, he's just as trite as torturing Nazis would be.

The writing is fine, but the editing is dreadful. There are typos, punctuation errors, and even misspellings. The tense changes at random. (This may be intentional, but if I'd been his beta, I'd have made him change it.)

In the author's world, sexual orientation is so binary that it can be tested for prenatally; obviously I have a problem with that, and also with the fact that apparently only men are gay (at least by page 130).

In summary: some interesting stuff here, but not enough to make me keep reading.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading this old favorite in today’s current climate is absolutely surreal.

[Robert Fontenot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this. I actually quite like the writing, but this novel takes place in a world I just don’t want to inhabit. Partially because it’s a speculative world built around the obsessions of a gay man in the deep south in the 90s, which I possibly could have related to in the 90s but over 20 years later, as a gay man on the west coast (far from the baptist church) it’s a bit harder to fit into that headspace. This sort of rollicking, mad cap, satirical action book can be tons of fun, Matt Ruff and Paul Di Fillipo have both written some great ones, but the world building is incredibly important and that is one of the failings of this book. Partially this is because the world isn’t terribly well explained but also because it doesn’t build off reality in a believable way. It also doesn’t help that some of the satire doesn’t bring anything particularly new or interesting to the conversation. I’m particularly thinking of an early section involving performance art that doesn’t go anywhere near as far as performance art had already gone by the time this book was written.

[Chris Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a gift and a delightful surprise. Picture Neal Stephenson's playfully convincing view of a techno-future with cultural enclaves (such as Conservative Christians, witches, native tribes) combined with a bit of magic/mysticism, just enough gay-friendly sexual energy and some delightful no-fucks-given characters. Hartman throws them together and it all works.

[Long Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about this book is perfect.

I heard it won literary awards. Totally deserving. 🏅

[Lori S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just how did the author keep them all straight? I bet he had a wall chart or something, with cross indexing. I'm impressed.

This book is full of interesting characters. We get first person perspectives from the Gumshoe Drew Parker, his partner, Jen late into the book, the Chosen Benji, his girlfriend Summer, her mother the Witch (whose name escapes me), the Reverend Senator Zacharia Stonewall, the Artist, the Singer, the Cherokee Shaman, the Police ... you get the picture. Each has his or her own character, distinguishable in tone and voice and you could almost read the book just by each character's part. Almost, but each story interweaves with the others in a nice flow which is surprisingly clear and easy to follow, though the mystery at the heart of the story is plenty twisty enough you don't find out exactly who did what.

To top it all off, we get criss-crossing of genre boundaries in free fall. I wish more authors would do this: there's a little bit of science fiction (it's set in the near future of 2025, artificial wombs, cloning and bio-shaping are the norm), fantasy/New Age (Wiccans who can do magic), a police procedural/detective fiction, social/religious commentary, politics, shamanism (I want to know what my totem is now) ... you name it, this book has it all, even a bit of espionage.

[Brandon Mehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mystery book told from multiple perspectives that is about Senator Stonewall, a fire-and-brimstone Baptist minister, and Calerant, a wronged artist. Sort of. There is the gumshoe, who saves the life of a Cherokee cross-dressing wise (wo)man, and ends up with ability to see into the spirit world to see totems. The witch, a mother of Summer, who has just found her first love interest in Benji, a Baptist, and Winter, a seven-year-old prodigious witch. The detective, a black woman, who has to deal with the ramifications of multiple grisly and puzzling murders. Overall, it's a good book, with a difference in thought style between the characters, and the mystery is very well done.

[Ray Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a magnificent job of world-building. There's no info-dump; the author doles out information about the setting and how it works as needed, in a way that never jarred me out of the story. I'm jealous.

The setting itself is a little scary, and entirely too conceivable: a US that is torn along sectarian lines, where the Baptists rule parts of metro Atlanta and have their own news network, where Nation of Islam, Mormons, Wiccans and witches (whose magic is real), and other faiths keep a wary eye on each other and one hand on their weapons of choice, and it feels like it's going to boil over any minute now. What makes this even scarier is that the book was published in 2009, but it feels like it's building on the relatively current situation here.

The story itself...I'l admit, it took me a while to really get into it. The whole thing is first-person, with more than have a dozen POV characters; one winds up dead about two-thirds of the way through and another is the guy behind the whole thing. Each of the characters has their own story, and none of them seem to have anything to do with the others. The threads gradually start to weave together about half-way through, and by the time the book hits the home stretch (say, the last 20% or so), it's all one disconcerting puzzle where the pieces come together from several different directions. (Again, jealous.)

Some of the background characters came off as a little trope-ish, which is probably part of why it didn't get the fifth star, but it wasn't enough to make me go "Seriously?" and it didn't really register as trope-ish until just now.

All in all, not the best book I've read so far this year, but certainly in the top two. And I'm definitely going to get the sequel.

[Cori Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wild ride imagines an America with two main religions: Christianity (largely Baptists) and Wicca. When grisly murders start to occur, simmering tensions across the community come to the boil. We follow a (slightly too large!) range of POVs, but the main ones are a private detective attempting to make sense of the mystery, a teenager who considers himself The Chosen (but in ways that don't advantage him at all) and the Reverend Senator who wants to capitalise on the murders to advance his own agenda. Also a police officer, a singer, an artist, and a Cherokee shaman. Who reads to me as trans, but is referred to as a drag queen throughout. Ouch.

So yes, this book was written 24 years ago, and needs some leeway on that front. It also needed the love of a good editor. But it's striking how much hasn't dated, or that has come back around, and I think this is well worth a read if you're not part of the Baptist church (there's some diversity in their representation, but mostly they are "the bad guys") and are interested in a story that's very busy with ideas and world-building. A fast-paced, entertaining read throughout.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun with this book. It’s not perfect. In fact, it has numerous errors that an editor should have caught. The end leaves a lot of loose ends in the narratives. There are way too many narrative POVs. But I really enjoyed it. It takes place in a near future where the US is so polarized by religion that it seems like civil war is about to break out. The majority of schools are Baptist or Wiccan, and Wicca has grown to be almost as huge as Christianity. The Christian right, specifically, the Baptists, have gained much political, military, and social power. So when a series of grizzly ritualistic murders occur, the Baptists wave their flags and get on their high horses that Satan is gaining power and must be defeated. The book won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award in 2000.

Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...

[Ζωή Παππά · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse is a scifi crime mystery book set in the near future. We follow many different characters and each one has their one story but
every individual storyline is a puzzle piece and all of them together create an amazing story full of mysteries, adventures, secrets and scandals.
I had a blast trying to make the pieces fit and figure out the mystery.
One of the main characters is Drew, a PI. I really liked Drew and I loved his storyline, I don't want to spoil anything but I can say that I I loved what happened with him and I would love to read more stories about him.
I also really enjoyed the author's sense of humor.
The futuristic world was also very interesting. Not too different from our own but different enough to make it intriguing.
I had the best time reading this book. It's a big book but the pacing was great and kept my interest from chapter one until the end. I stayed up late to finish it.

[Tepintzin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a good 15 years ago, and felt like reading it again. It's kind of a novel-length political cartoon, and very prescient in how possible it is to live in an echo chamber. There are actual Wiccan neighbourhoods and private schools, and these exist for other religions, and sects of same. Like ethnic neighbourhoods, only here it's deliberately constructed subdivisions. It was amusing seeing references to the Microsoft Network, which of course now absolutely exists. So some things are dated but overall, a believable vision.

[Emily Larkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have one word to describe THE GUMSHOE, THE WITCH, AND THE VIRTUAL CORPSE, and that word is … Wow. Hartman did an amazing job of keeping the reader guessing. I literally had no idea what was going to happen next. The chapters went in directions I never thought of. One of the most original and clever books I’ve read in a long time.
I’m not sure how to categorize it. A futuristic, hardboiled detective novel with a dash of paranormal? A fun, original, genre-defying detective novel that will stretch your brain?

[Mykhe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped reading because I don't think I can do another 200 pages of this. The parts that sucked me in were amazing, but the constant switching of narrator perspective to new characters (9 new people in the first 10 chapters, I think) and a lack of clarity as to the shared narrative between the inflated population of the book have me calling it quits (I think I've only done this for about 5 books in my life, and I'm currently 54.) I may come back at some time to simply get to the end, but right now I have too many books and too little time.

[Paul W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Batshit crazy! If you broke this book down you'd go mental. Far too many grammatical errors and at one point the years and ages don't add up. Also, due to the large amount of narrators in the book, its tough even for the sharpest of memories to remember what happened a particular characters in their previous chapters 100 pages back. BUT, if you go with the flow and just enjoy the slightly fantastical/futuristic murder mystery then you'll have a blast!

[Veronik Durocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good!

A good story. At first, I was disoriented, as there is a lot of characters and they all talk at the first person. It was kind of disturbing to replace who's who at the beginning of each chapter. So it was a slow read for me, at first, since I'm not a native english speaker. I'm really glad that I gave it a go anyway, as the history keeps getting better and better.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book several years ago, and it’s one that has stuck with me ever since… It was a really interesting and intriguing storyline about a future America. One that is closer to reality than I like in many ways. It’s one of those books that even after you read it and put it down you still remember key phrases, points, and scenes years later… Definitely worth checking out!

[Peter Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very carefully crafted story with engaging characters and murder mystery plot. It had the feel of a noir story, which I liked.

I was three chapters in when I realized that each chapter had a different narrator. It was quite jarring and very unclear, especially at the beginning. As characters were introduced, especially as narrators, it would have been helpful to have a list of characters to help keep track. There was no chapter index for the kindler version I read which made it difficult to remember which character was narrating the chapter I was reading if I had to stop in the middle of one. The narrative tense often changed from present to past with rapid messiness, and there were quite a few typos.

But this was a great read, despite some imperfections

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the reader can get passed each chapter having a different first person narrator, it is a good story set in the near future when Christian fundamentalism is running rampant and is literal conflict with other denominations and wiccan believers.

[Lynn P · Rating 5 out of 5]

refreshingly different

An excellent book, and considering it was written over 10 years ago, we can change the names of some people in the book, and it could be current events. Very very good and very different.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strong start, like a fever dream of ideas. It gets lost (or too bogged down) about halfway through, and then picks back up to a satisfying - if ever too swift as is the thing about PI books - ending. On the strong up side, it feels remarkably contemporary given its age.

[Ryan B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cleverly written, with characters I cared about.

[Cecil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way too weird.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse" by Keith Hartman gives a fun look into the near future, where cultural differences have created a segregated society that is sitting on a powder keg.
Keith Hartman has created a colorful cast of characters, and it's fun to see how their various stories come together. I was a little disappointed at how little Drew Parker had to do with the actual story, and I was sad to see a certain character die so suddenly. The story has LGBT characters and themes, but at the core of it is a heterosexual romance. Still, the mystery was strong enough to keep me guessing and the book was hard to put down. By far the best part is the world that Keith Hartman created. Its a wacky future that still feels plausible. Its a really interesting setting that feels like a real place.
Overall I enjoyed this book a lot and immediately picked up the sequel. I recommend it highly, but people expecting more gay content might be disappointed.

[Delton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyable dialogue and convoluted, yet somewhat witty scenarios throughout the book made up for some of the clumsy writing. However, the overall *mystery* wasn't all that intriguing or engaging and at times it was hard to believe the 'Gumshoe' was some sort of seasoned and 'skilled' undercover detective.

Although the chapters in the book tell the story from the point of view of (too) many characters, it still all felt somewhat like the same voice to me. Part Sci-Fi and part mystery, it felt lacking in both.

Also, for a book set in the year 2033, it felt surprisingly like WeHo in the early 1990's. The future was loaded up with 'Reverend' Senators, religious people obsessed with finding out who among them may be 'gay' and flirtatious men preoccupied with young, cute guys. Talk about a depressing future...

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have had the Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse on my "to read" list for a while now, and I'm very glad that I finally got around to reading it. The story is very inventive, the characters are fully rounded and interesting, and the multiple POV storytelling really allows the reader to truly understand the full depth of the mystery.

I think my only criticism would be that there was one POV character too many. Considering the title, I would have expected most of the tale to be seen through the eyes of the Gumshoe and the Witch, but it feels that we see more through Benji than the others. (Not that I mind too much as the character is probably the most compelling as we try to figure out the mystery.)

All in all, I enjoyed the story and am glad I finally read it. I may pick up the sequel, but it might not be for a little while as I pick through the rest of my "to read" list...

[Korgon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I adore this book. It's such glorious fun, written with love and conviction and sharp, dorky humour. Perfect for curling up with to reread when the world outside is getting me down.

Set in a thoroughly balkanised 2024 America, it follows its much put-upon characters through a week of serial killers, riots, court cases and, of course, embarrassing crushes.

Clearly a first novel, but I find the rough edges charming; they make the earnestness that occasionally bursts through a lot easier to enjoy.

Hops from genre to genre with glee and love, and has a special place in my heart for being one of the first unabashedly queer novels I ever read.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mystery set in a future conceived in the 90's. So far, 8 different first person narrators and counting. Possible time travelers have appeared. You wouldn't think it would work at all, but it did, all the way through. Finished in one fabulous afternoon. I totally enjoyed this. Not for anyone who takes their Moral Majority, New Age witchcraft or gay private eyes seriously, and there were no time travelers after all, just psychics. I figured out at last that it was like a comic book in prose, that's why all the different first person narrators, to get the reader into the frame. Five stars for making me a happy lowbrow reader.