Excellent science fiction. ( )

This is the first book in Rusch's Retrieval Artist series, although the series originated in an earlier novella that takes place after The Disappeared so this is the "origin" story. A pair of detectives on the moon are assigned the case of a small spaceyacht discovered with the remains of three people in them. It's clear that aliens called the Disty have sickeningly taken their revenge out on the people, a perfectly legal form of vengeance killing, but it's not clear what happened to the crew of the space yacht. Before they're barely started on this case, they're assigned another case, this time of a possibly legal alien kidnapping of two human children. With time running out, the detectives must keep the aliens from getting their hands on the children through the use of legal loopholes, at least until the loopholes are closed. Then to top it off another spaceyacht is brought in, this time containing a human woman who insists that she was the unfortunate victim of the crew being kidnapped by other aliens. This is eventually too much coincidence for the detectives, and junior of the pair must figure out what connects these three alien justice cases. An excellent start to the series, with good development of the characters, lots of flaws, a great idea behind the plot, and even a little bit of sympathy for the aliens' viewpoint. I look forward to reading all the rest of the books in the series. ( )

This is a fast, interesting and well-developed novel with interesting aliens and a suspenseful plot.

There are some "gaps" where the story seems to jump - a story thread gets concluded "behind the scenes" (i.e we last see one character on the run from the police then at the end of the book we find out she's been relocated to Earth, but there is no indication of how this happened).

I will be reading more in the series, however. ( )

Miles Flint finally worked his way up to detective in the police force for Armstrong dome on the Moon, and this week is presenting him with an unpleasant set of cases. Interstellar diplomacy requires that wrong committed against a member of an alien species be punished according to that species’ laws, and some of those laws are harsher than anything Hammurabi ever wrote down; naturally, this creates a market for illegal Disappearance services to help people evade alien justice that is, by human standards, unreasonable. He winds up having to juggle three related cases involving three different species tracking down people who used Disappearance services, and facing some very nasty moral decisions.

The story keeps up a fairly good pace and the characters well fleshed-out, but the worldbuilding seems a bit of an afterthought. There are some details about life on the moon, but even I never noticed even a nod toward the differing gravity there, or the other details of coping with an environment containing vacuum, meteorites, and radiation. I’m not expecting a rigorous work of hard science fiction here, but it would have been nice to at least see some sort of handwavium nod toward the issue. ( )

Satisfying space opera, well thought out world building, excellent aliens. I really liked the ethical dilemmas outlined in this book and how the daily intereactions with aliens is what caused the trouble - not huge intergalactic wars, but simple things like if you practice law in our neck of the woods, you become party to our legal system and outcomes and if we demand the surrender of your first born as punishment for your crimes, then the Earth's political/judicial system has to agree.

This is not the most elegantly written book I've ever read, but it clips along at a great pace, and it feels solid - once you enter Rusch's world, everything makes sense, nothing trips you out of it. We meet Miles Flint, who I suspect will appear in other books, as a new detective, recently out of port patrol. He has baggage, who doesn't? and an experienced partner who doesn't rate him. When they get 3 complex alien cases in one week, they know something has gone really wrong, and then they spend the book trying to deal with it and figuring out the best solutions in a very murky world.

I'm definitely looking for more of this series. Happy find. A ( )