Interlibrary Loan

the long version

A sequel to "A Borrowed Man" is set in a future world of artificial intelligence where a clone is loaned out to a little girl before discovering that his original self, a mystery writer, is still alive. Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots. And there are clones. E.A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Which he is. Along with two fellow reclones, a cookbook and romance writer, they are shipped to Polly's Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not. And another E.A. Smithe...who definitely is.