The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov

 Lije Baley, Earthman detective, is called upon to investigate the death of a prominent Spacer in the settlement the people from the Outer Worlds have established on Earth. He gets an extremely human-looking robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, in the process.

In some ways, the book is very much what I expected. Baley is significantly less accepting of Daneel's quirks as a robot, although he ultimately accepts his presence. Baley makes some wrong steps because he doesn't really understand Spacers or robots well enough (such as concluding Daneel was constructed without the First Law, and is therefore capable of harming a human). Baley is resistant to the idea of an Earthman going outside the Cities (meaning, under the open sky).

But there's much more focus on Baley's wife, Jesse, than in the other books in the series combined. Including a whole anecdote about how Jesse's actual name is Jezebel, and what she thought that meant versus what Baley does. Asimov gives Baley a whole backstory about his father, that his father was "declassified" because of a screw-up, and it knocked them to the bottom of society. They're provided for - nobody starves of goes homeless - but it's subsistence level, no more. Baley has clawed his way up from there, and while there's the possibility of promotion if he cracks the case, there's also the danger of declassification if he fucks things up too much between Earth and the Spacers.

I think it's meant to act as this dire fate that drives Baley on to solve the case, but the story doesn't carry it. Maybe that's because I've read the subsequent books and I know how things turn out. I don't think that, even as he keeps getting handed Spacer related murders by higher-ups who aren't always friendly, Baley worries about declassification ever again after this book. So it feels like a surprise here to see his father's fate presented as this looming specter. Baley strikes me as someone who wants to solve cases because he believes in his work, and because he hates looking foolish. Even if he makes missteps along the way, as long as he figures it out at the end, that'll work.

'Reasons for anti-robot rioting certainly existed, Men who found themselves faced with the prospect of the desperate minimum involved in declassification, after half a lifetime of effort, could not decide cold-bloodedly that individual robots were not to blame. Individual robots could at least be struck at.

One could not strike at something called 'governmental policy' or at a slogan like 'Higher production with robot labour.'

The government called it growing pains. It shook its collective head sorrowfully and assured everyone that after a necessary period of adjustment, a new and better life would exist for all.'