Review of The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

In 2021 there were at least two detective noir novels with science fiction elements released (and likely a dozen more given the state of the industry, but one person can only read so much, alas). The first I read was Midnight, Water City by Chris McKinney. A book which wore its influences clearly on its sleeve, McKinney put himself in the awkward situation of being compared directly to Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler, a comparison that wasn’t always favorable. The second I read was Lincoln Michel’s The Body Scout (2021). What road from the nexus of noir did Michel choose?

Set in near-future corporate America, The Body Scout is the story of the washed up baseball player, Kobo Zunz. A former Cyber League player before it failed as a business, he turned his talents—and cybernetic body parts—to scouting for prospects in the traditional, non-cyber league. Zunz’s brother J.J. is a star playing for one of the richest teams, the Monsunato Mets. Day to day Kobo gets by, smoking large amounts of cigarettes and living vicariously through the success of his brother, a success that has new heights of potential as the Mets reach the playoffs. But when J.J.’s body literally melts before the eyes of the world on television one game, Kobo is forced to get to the bottom of the mystery. His search for answers takes him from the highest offices of ultra-rich CEOs to the low slums of Luddites eschewing body augmentation. With super-pharma and bio upgrades in the game, Kobo gets much more than he was looking for, his own life ending up on the line.

The Body Scout is a straight-forward work of crime fiction noir with strong post-human/cyberpunk elements. But what makes The Body Scout stand out, and what pushes it beyond the vanilla flavor of Midnight, Water City, is one thing: baseball. Even if you are not a fan of baseball, you should keep reading.

Looking at sports in the United States today, there may be no activity more scrutinized for enhancements, legal and illegal, than baseball. Players are constantly pushing the limits of what is permissible and not, the game’s owners are constantly publishing new guidelines for what is allowable, just as science is always seeking and seeking new biological territory. Steroids just the tip of the iceberg, most baseball athletes today are on strict regimens of diet and pills. Speculating on this is only natural.

Looking at culture and media in broader terms, there are several examples of post-human baseball. There have been a few video games over the years starring robots, and recently a tabletop game, Baseball Highlights 2045, which features a mix of androids, humans, and augmented humans. In short, baseball has been ripe for cyberpunk rendering for some time, and Michel’s version of bio-enhanced baseball capitalizes on it.

Does The Body Scout still fit the mold of crime fiction? 100%. Is the structure conventional? 100% yes. Does Kobo fit the world-weary, cigarette smoking anti-hero of classic noir? 100%+. But the manner in which baseball is unpacked as a post-human possibility is the novel’s prime hook, and it’s done well enough to recommend, even to people who know little of baseball.

This review cannot be finished without mentioning the novel’s conclusion. (No spoilers ahead.) Where the majority of the novel is easily, identifiably noir/crime fiction, the ending is something just a little bit more. Michel provides a small boost that allows the story to achieve more than it perhaps should. There is a reveal, but it is not a classic Gotcha! reveal. It doesn’t surprise the reader in terms of plot so much as it does in terms of character. A sad reminder of how superficial humanity can be, Michel manages to transcend the classic cyberpunk motif of ‘corporations are evil’ to offer the reader something more despondently human.

In the end, The Body Scout will not go down in history alongside cyberpunk/post-human giants like Neuromancer, Hardwired, or Islands in the Net. It’s of a different era. But it does unpack a future of baseball in imaginative cyberpunk fashion, and underpins it with a classic murder mystery that scratches any crime-fiction itch, offering the reader a morsel of woeful yet relatable humanity at the conclusion. People and players slurried and pumped up on drugs and augmentations in a corporate dystopia is the name of the game (sorry), and Michel’s rendition is worth a read. Prior knowledge of baseball is not required. Michel does not go into the history of the game or expect readers to have insider knowledge how it functions. Basic, cultural knowledge of the sport is enough. The rest is well done noir.