Obligations of the Bone

The 1960s counterculture figures strongly in the third appearance of Boston's occasional shamus Alex Glauberman, an auto mechanic (northern European models only) and recovering cancer patient. Local doctor Jay Harrison receives a note requesting a loan in exchange for silence about his cross-country hitchhiking trip and some time he spent in San Francisco during his student days. Before Alex begins to investigate, a sample of bone marrow is stolen from Harrison's clinic, further threatening a cancer patient's life, and considerably more money is demanded for its return. The transaction goes down badly, sending Alex racing to the West Coast to find the blackmailers. Cluster ( Repulse Monkey ) adroitly moves into his characters' pasts, exploring draft-dodging, leftist politics and '60s dreams dashed on the rocks of yuppie aspiration. More reality is added by the threatened patient's hateful husband and some disgruntled patients of Dr. Jay. Everything meshes well, though game Alex often finds himself up to his eyeballs in medical knowledge he never sought. (Sept.)