He enters a demimonde in which the perverse desires of the very wealthy are considered the ultimate bargaining chip. Bancroft has become vulnerable in that underworld because of his penchant for hiring prostitutes with whom he performs violent and illicit sex acts. Kovacs' and Ortega's investigation begins with low-end hookers such as the woman Bancroft visited at Jerry's Closed Cabins, but eventually leads to The Houses - exclusive whorehouses where anything from bestiality to snuffs can be bought for the right price.

But, several someones don't want the investigation completed. One of them is Bancroft's wife, Miriam, who has sexual secrets of her own. Another is an old nemesis Kovacs knew off planet. A third, operating under a mistaken assumption about his identity, also wants Kovacs' stack. The adversaries' and the protagonist's own tendency toward, if not preference for, violence, results in a trail of bodies, real and sleeves, as the investigation proceeds.

But, what does an action packed science fiction detective story have to do with the philosophical and scientific issue I mentioned at the beginning of this review? Lots. There is an easy out for well-connected murderers on the Earth of Altered Carbon. Catholics refuse being resleeved as a matter of faith. They believe only God can resurrect them. So, if a Catholic is killed, he or she can be said to have chosen to die instead of having been murdered. If one of the most powerful Methusalehs has her way, that rule will be extended to all of society - killings of those who could be resleeved will not be considered murder. The effect will be to make constructs as real as born humans under a significant aspect of the law. It will no longer matter if a body was born or is merely being worn. Takeshi Kovacs' investigation, and what he decides to do with what he learns, will determine the outcome.

The argument for not considering constructs human is basically the same as the one used to try to relegate some 'races' to subhuman status by scientific racists. They say the small differences, mainly in appearance, of people from different parts of the world mean some people, usually those of Western Europe, are more worthy of human status than others, who are, inevitably, darker hued and from areas formerly colonialized or used as slave markets by Western Europeans. However, there is an important difference. Constructs, cheap or expensive, having been engineered instead of having arisen naturally, would not be truly human. Science fiction novels such as Altered Carbon help us determine what it means to be a member of the human race.

Update:This entry has also been published to Silver Rights.