The Intuitionist

This is Colson Whitehead's debut novel, and much more fanciful than his most recent books - not that that's a complaint. The Intuitionist is a hard-boiled, pulpy noir, almost postmodern story about conflict and corruption in the world of elevator inspectors as an allegory for the struggle for racial and gender equality, framed in a conflict between the two main factions of elevator inspecting, The Empiricists and the Intuitionists, and underpinned by the search for a legendary book about theoretical elevators. It's just as bizarre as it sounds, incredibly clever, and unexpectedly funny. Thank you @russell for the recommendation <3