Metal Sky

Metal Sky, Jay Caselberg, Roc Books, 2004

Private investigator Jack Stein has set up shop in the town of Yorkstone. It's a town on the move, literally (it really is a moving town), and it's a programmable town. For instance, one changes the furniture in a room just by telling your computer. Jack's appointment book is empty, until Bridget Farrell walks into Jack's office.  She is a very beautiful woman who knows how to use her beauty. She asks Jack's help in finding a metallic tablet inscribed with ornate symbols.

Farrell had a colleague/competitor in the field of obtaining rare objects,  a man named Talbot. Unfortunately, he got too close to the business end of an energy weapon, and is now very dead. The Yorkstone police are now very interested. A rich industrialist named Landeman is also interested in the tablet.

Jack is a psychic investigator; he works from hunches or "feelings" gained from objects, other people or dreams. He meets Talbot in his dreams and is told to go to a planet called Mandala. A major archaeological dig is underway, uncovering what was a major city. In his dreams, Jack sees the city as it was a millennia ago. But he is no closer to discovering the answers to his growing list of questions.

Back in Yorkstone, Billie, Jack's teenage "ward" and an expert information finder, learns that the object is made of a metal unknown to science, and probably came from Mandala. It could be an object of great power, or the key to some advanced civilization. Jack begins to piece it all together; a potentially "huge" object like this would be worth a lot of money to some people.

This works really well as a mystery story and a science fiction story. It's just weird enough, and it also has echoes of famous tales like The Maltese Falcon. Either way, it's worth reading.