固有瑕疵 (2009)

《固有瑕疵》（英语：Inherent Vice）是一本由美国作家托马斯·品钦所写的小说，在2009年8月出版。本书是黑色幽默侦探小说，故事设定在1970年代的加州，讲述侦探Larry "Doc" Sportello的前女友要求他调查一宗涉及一位著名土地开发商的计划。故事有显眼的毒品文化和反文化主题。本书的评价大部分都是积极正面，评论者将《固有瑕疵》描述为品钦的其中一部易理解的作品。这部小说被改编成2014年的英文同名电影《性本恶》。

Inherent Vice is a novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon, originally published on August 4, 2009. A darkly comic detective novel set in 1970s California, the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investigate a scheme involving a prominent land developer. Themes of drug culture and counterculture are prominently featured. It is considered a postmodern novel that warps the stylistic conventions of detective fiction. Critical reception was largely positive, with reviewers describing Inherent Vice as one of Pynchon's more accessible works. The novel was adapted into a film in 2014.

Plot summary

The novel is set in Los Angeles in 1970. Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private investigator and pothead, receives a visit from his former girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth, who is now having an affair with real-estate mogul Michael Z. "Mickey" Wolfmann. Shasta asks Doc to help foil a plot allegedly hatched by Mickey's wife Sloane and her lover, Riggs Warbling, to have Mickey admitted to a mental health institution. Later, a black militant named Tariq Khalil asks Doc to find Glen Charlock, one of Mickey's bodyguards—Tariq claims that Charlock owes him money after their time spent together in prison.

Doc visits one of Mickey's developments but is knocked unconscious, and awakes to find himself being questioned by his old LAPD nemesis, Det. Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, who informs Doc that Charlock has been shot dead and Mickey has vanished. Later, Doc is visited by Hope Harlingen, the widow of a musician named Coy Harlingen, who wants Doc to investigate rumors that Coy is still alive. Doc learns that Coy has been working for the government as an informer and agent provocateur, but is allowed no contact with his family. He finds Coy in a nightclub, and he tells Doc about the Golden Fang, an old schooner suspected of bringing mysterious goods into port, and upon which both Mickey and Shasta are rumored to have departed. He also discovers that Puck Beaverton had switched shifts with Charlock on the day of Charlock's death.

Doc visits Golden Fang Enterprises where he meets Japonica Fenway, a young runaway whom Doc had returned to her wealthy parents on a previous occasion. Japonica reveals that she has stayed at a clinic named the Chryskylodon Institute. Doc visits the institute, where he again encounters Coy Harlingen, and deduces that Mickey has been apprehended by an unknown person. Doc is then told that the attack during which Glen Charlock was shot was carried out by a group of vigilantes who secretly work for the LAPD. Doc then discovers links between Puck Beaverton and a notorious loan shark named Adrian Prussia. After a visit from Trillium Fortnight, a female companion of Puck's, Doc travels to Las Vegas in search of Puck and Trillium's sexual threesome partner, Einar.

In Las Vegas, Doc places a bet with the manager of the Kismet Lounge, Fabian Fazzo, that Mickey had not faked his own disappearance. Later, Doc believes that he sees Mickey in the company of federal agents, and subsequently hears of Mickey's scheme for a philanthropic housing project in the desert. Doc visits the site and encounters Riggs Warbling, architect of the housing project, who fears that Mickey has been "reprogrammed" and that the development, already abandoned, will be destroyed.

Back in Los Angeles, Doc learns that Puck Beaverton and Bigfoot's former policing partner, Vincent Indelicato, were sworn enemies. Adrian Prussia permitted Puck to murder Vincent. Doc visits Adrian, who claims that he is behind the Golden Fang organization, while Puck contends that Glen was killed deliberately because he was supplying black-power groups with weapons. Doc is handcuffed and about to be given a lethal drug overdose, but escapes and kills both Puck and Adrian. Bigfoot, who has evidently been using Doc to investigate Vincent's death, picks Doc up, but sets him up with a huge quantity of stolen heroin.