Dialogue by Raymond Chandler, setting by Philip K. Dick. The best part of this hard boiled mystery is the setting, worn like a wrinkled suit by the main character and sometimes unexplained. This near-future west coast has more in common with 1984 than Chandler's City of Angels.

Sometimes the setting is spread a little too thin, though apparently hints at settings used in other Lethem books. This being his first, I wonder if the lack was editing or hinting - I suspect the former. I found a technical paper that connects some of the dots between this and As She Climbed Across the Table, which was the first Jonathan Lethem novel I read.

Speaking of firsts, this was the first novel published by Lethem, a New York native who also uses the name Harry Conklin.