Let me first dissuade you - if you want to read this book because you expect Nick, Nora, and Asta to make an appearance, this isn’t that kind of Thin Man. Nor is this “Gumshoe - In Space!” - not quite. There is a certain homage to Dashiell Hammett in this novel, a flair of the noir in its tongue in cheek references to fedoras and trenchcoats, private investigators, and hunting down criminal masterminds in modern speakeasies. It is very much a science fiction novel, though, of that variety of thriller that was popular at the end of the pulp era. Good guys vs bad, agents on the run and the fate of society in their hands.

Set nearly a century away, humanity has made contact with two other sentient species, acquired FTL travel, and colonized other planets. A political movement has risen up that threatens the peace of the Union, and our two gumshoes, hired on as contractors by a government agency, are trying to track down the location of the leader of the Movement, the alien Helk known as Terl Plenko. Things go from bad to worse when a terrorist attack causes the moon Ribon to crash into the planet it orbits, destroying settlements on both worlds.

The mystery is light, but the tension is kept steady in this science fiction thriller. What may cause some issues for some readers is the disorienting switch in POV between chapters. The novel is written from the perspective of our two chief protagonists, but only one of them is in the first person. The other character’s story is written loosely in the third person. In the ARC, this perspective slipped a few times, and I really hope this is an artifact of the pre-edit condition of the novel and not something that made it to print. Because without that detraction, the novel was a lot of fun, fully earning the four stars I’ve given it. Although the post-climax epilogue ties off some threads while ignoring others, I think that’s just Swenson hedging his bets. I’m sure this volume will do well enough to garner more gumshoe stories set in his Union universe.

Special thanks to Tor Books, who allowed me to read an ARC of this novel on netgalley. ( )

Pros: interesting plot, mostly fast paced, new aliens species

Cons: confusing opening, slow beginning

Memor technology allows humans to colonize several worlds. The Network Intelligence Office has been trying to catch Terl Plenko, leader of the Movement terrorist group. Plenko has been encouraging the colonies to leave the Union, using violent methods. The death of Plenko’s mate during an NIO mission on the Ribon colony puts investigative partners Dave Crowell and Alan Brindos on Plenko’s trail. His top henchmen (or maybe one of his alias’s) have potentially been seen on the vacation planet of Temonus, and Dave sends Alan there. Split up, they each learn that there’s a conspiracy going on, that they can’t trust the NIO, and that Plenko is more than he seems.

The book is narrated in alternating chapters by Dave Crowell, in first person, and Alan Brindos, in third person. While it makes it clear when you’re with the different protagonists, it took me several minutes of hunting through the text to figure out who the first narrator was (since he was “I” in the text) and properly understand what was going on. At the same time a lot of new terms are thrown at the reader, including a fair amount of tech terms, which didn’t help. Once I knew who the narrators were, I reread the first few chapters again to make sure I didn’t miss any clues with regards to the plot.

The first few chapters are quite slow as there’s a lot of exposition going on. After that, the narrative structure of quickly passing back and forth between the protagonists creates tension and interest, and the rest of the book was a rush of trying to figure out the mystery.

The mystery was very interesting. There are a lot of great twists and turns. So much happened that I could not have guessed in advance, which kept me on my toes, wondering how this was all going to end.

I enjoyed reading about both Alan and Dave. They’re proper noir PIs - thinking fast and cleverly inserting themselves where they need to be to get the information they want, though in the story they’ve contracted with the NIO and so have advanced resources. The supporting cast was varied and interesting, including several women and Helks (another alien race). I thought both Dorie and Jennifer were well written and intriguing.

While there weren’t many alien races, the Helks and Memors were kind of interesting. You learn more about the Helks, who are giant like humanoids.

If you like noir science fiction, this book has a great mystery and is a relatively quick read. ( )

This is a light, action-oriented spy thriller with a sci-fi setting.

It moved along quickly, but I ended up having a lot of issues with it.

The beginning (featuring a gratuitous lesbian make-out scene) wasn't promising, but with the exception of one, mercifully brief (but still cringe-inducing) sex scene, the bad romance is minimal. The women are still written throughout as if they're something out of a teenage boy's imagination (and WHY do most of them work in a brothel, when prostitution is 100% irrelevant to the plot?) but while the portrayal of women here is not what one could call feminist, we don't go into offense-worthy territory.

Two agents, Brindos and Crowell, while investigating a rebellious terrorist group called 'The Movement,' uncover a deeper plot to tear the Union of planets apart.

The writing style seems to ask that the reader zip through, not stopping to think too deeply about anything. This is a good thing, because if you do stop to consider the plot elements, none of it makes much sense.
A particle accelerator that can be used both to control the weather and to do some kind of person-copying trick? OK. Just accept that at face value. (A lot of the characters hand-wave away the science by saying 'I don't understand it,' so I think we're expected to just do the same.)
But people's motivations and actions here don't compute. I kept saying, "OK - but WHY would she team up with him?" (for example). Or - "WHAT is the point of this whole conspiracy, anyway?"

It's hard to keep zipping over the holes when there are also speedbumps in the way. One of these is that both of the main POV characters are really similar. I often had a hard time distinguishing between them. On top of that, the book gets to a point where no one's identity is certain - and when characters' behaviors are somewhat mystifying to start with, it makes it even harder to keep track....

I like the cover a lot.

Advance copy of this book provided by NetGalley. Much appreciation for the opportunity to read.

( )

I'm not going into a plot review as others have done that pretty well. The book is an attempt to bring a hard-boiled detective story into the science fiction space. Certainly not an original idea but others have done it better. But it could have been an enjoyable read except for several problems. For example...

There are two main human characters, Dave Crowell and Alan Brindos. The story is told between their two perspectives. The author takes the approach, in alternating chapters, of telling the story from Crowell's first person perspective and Brindos' third person perspective.This was distracting to me.

Another was the interactions between the humans and the alien Helks. The Helks are described as being humanoid, but quite a bit larger than the humans. The author most of the time ignores this. He'll have a Helk and a human sitting in a bar booth together, or traveling in the same vehicle. Either the Helk is squeezing into a space to small for it, or the human is swimming in too much space. In other place he makes a deal out of it.

The Helks use a weapon called a stunner, which if I understood it's effect, blasted apart whatever it was shot at. The humans used a weapon called a blaster which seemed more to act like a Star Trek phaser on stun. Was this supposed to be a joke?

At about 1/3 into the book, doubles of some of the already introduced characters began to appear. From that point on I had a hard time following the story. There were a lot of copies of the supposed terrorist the Helk, Terl Plenko which all had different names. There seemed to be little point to this.

About 30 pages from the end I was beginning to get worried that this was going to be the first of a multi-part book. I wasn't enjoying it enough to want to read another book to find out how the story ended. I'll give the author credit for ending the story, in a more or less, satisfactory way. It's apparent that he hopes to followup with more novels with some of these characters but I probably won't be interested. ( )

Embarrassingly trivial. Juvenile. Maybe OK for pre-teen boys? Wish I hadn't wasted my time on it. ( )