Great science fiction and great murder mystery, at the same time. Really liked the description of different physics on the Moon, and the futuristic culture and legal issues that are brought up, both of which actually become relevant to the plot. ( )

Larry Niven is a great writer for unique and sometimes grand ideas; however, many of his books and stories were written in the 70's and 80's and it shows. Sex was used a lot for the young male audience. However, this story does cover a interesting topic of one of his universes, which is organ legging. The stealing and selling of human body parts for transplants. It also explores the moral decay of a society heavily in need of such transplants and the lengths they will go to get them. ( )

In Harlan Ellison's [b:Dangerous Visions|680557|Dangerous Visions|Harlan Ellison|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327270857s/680557.jpg|2758790] (1967), Larry Niven wrote of a future where criminals were given the death penalty so that their bodies could be harvested to benefit the upstanding members of society. Apparently this theme is of continual interest to the author, because he revisits it in this 1980 novel.

At a law conference on the moon, a speaker is nearly assassinated. The only suspect is a beautiful woman called Naomi, who has an agenda of her own, but is she really the killer? ARM agent Gil Hamilton, who knew Naomi years ago and doesn't believe she could have done it, investigates. If Naomi is found guilty, she will go to the body banks to be harvested.

The story is a pulp-style mystery, complete with femme fatale and other standard elements--Gil even observes this aspect himself--with a speculative twist. I enjoyed it. This edition is also nicely illustrated by Fernando Fernández. It's too bad publishers don't do that any more. ( )

(Original Review, 1980-04-03)

I just read this book by Niven; it looks new (first printing April 1980), and features Gil the ARM. Standard Niven with some new psychic hand abilities. (Would you believe searching in a hologram like dowsing over a map). Also, another laser murder, however nothing so creative as the one where the light originated in a time-retarded field. One thing he never explains - why are lunar ("Lunie") courts so quick to mete out justice? He provides some kind of explanation for both Earth and Belter customs, both here and in other stories. Aside from quick remarks about the Lunies being between Earth and the Belt in their approach there is no explanation for the conduct of the particular trial in the story. Is there some story elsewhere that I missed? Another confusing point are lunar sexual and marital customs. His hero gets a bit confused, apparently; so did I. My confusion, unfortunately, did not terminate in bed.

An unrelated issue: when I first started importing SF books from the USA, I remember paperbacks of this quality (gummed binding likely to fall apart after the first reading, mediocre printing quality) being about $0.95 or so. This book, an ACE "Mass market edition" was $2.50, which implies that inflation has been 150% in 6 years. Seems a bit excessive as I can't think of any other consumer item that has gone up by that much. Has the economics of the book industry changed more drastically than that of the rest of the world, Portugal included? (Not at all rhetorical, if anybody has some information, I would like to know it.)

[2018 EDIT: This review was written at the time as I was running my own personal BBS server. Much of the language of this and other reviews written in 1980 reflect a very particular kind of language: what I call now in retrospect a “BBS language”.] ( )

There was a murder on the moon's surface and the most beautiful woman on the moon is the suspect. Gil "The Arm" Hamilton doesn't think she did it but he doesn't have very long to save her from death and recycling into the organ banks. Some nice illustrations in a pen and ink style. And a great read. ( )