THE DEAD DO NOT IMPROVE

It's an ultramodern crime novel, a hipster noir of a sort, narrated by a frank and listless young Korean-American named Philip Kim. Philip channels his general frustration into running a social networking site for the jilted: GetOverIt.Com. But when his elderly next door neighbor is murdered, the self-conscious torpor in which Philip has been wallowing in his nearly gentrified neighborhood is punctured, as he comes to realize that he may be at the focal point of a many-tentacled, multi-suspect, violent scheme to either propagate or protect against a new, pervasive form of crime.

For better or worse, detectives Sid "Keanu" Finch, a laconic, surfing 37-year-old native San Franciscan, and his raging partner, Jim Kim, are assigned to the case. In their distinctive fashions, Finch and Kim reluctantly pursue the mounting tangle of crimes and suspects, as pornography, health food, surf culture, Korean-American identity politics, hip-hop iconography, creative writing classes, the loser narrative, and the scourge of social media swarm around the cops and victims. Sprinkle in both a budding and flagging romance, told within two alternating modes of intimate narration, and you have a rampaging, impolite, engrossing, cutting, and still sincere caper that should range across countless categories and tastes.

Jay earned his MFA from Columbia, and has published work in Deadspin, TheAtlantic.com, The Morning News, and elsewhere.