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Tesla Crane and her new spouse Shal Steward are on honeymoon, travelling incognito on an interstellar cruise liner to Mars. Then there is a murder outside their cabin and it looks like someone is trying to frame Shal for it. Tesla has her lawyer Fantine on speed-dial, but as the ship travels away from Earth the lightspeed lag gets longer and longer, and the ship's chief of security is adamant that Shal must be the guilty party...
This is a murder mystery set on a cruise liner in space; the interstellar liner is vast, and convincingly described, right down to how they manage to have sections with terran, lunar, and martian gravity. There are lots of nice details, some of which turn out to be relevant to the plot. I enjoyed each chapter starting with a cocktail recipe (some alcoholic, some not; most real, some fictional), some of which are quite funny (e.g. "Extra-Dry Martini. 2oz. gin. Stir over ice. Say the word 'vermouth'. Strain into martini glass"). There are parts of the described society that feel quite contemporary (e.g. courtesy masks are still widely available; most people are Mx. by default, and it is customary to include pronouns when introducing people), and the escalation of surveillance and counter-surveillance tech was pretty believable.
Tesla, the main protagonist, has PTSD and chronic pain from an earlier industrial accident (which we learn about as the plot advances), which is largely handled sensitively; although the hard-hearted critic might note that there are rarely any serious consequences from taking the safeties off her DBS pain relief system. She has a service dog, Gimlet, to help her with these conditions, and the incredibly cute Westie steals many of the scenes they appear in. Tesla is obviously also extremely wealthy, and not above using that wealth and status to get her own way. At times this goes beyond "interestingly flawed protagonist" into "really annoying protagonist", and definitely left me at times more "interested in the answer to the mystery" than "cares about wellbeing of protagonist".
The mystery is resolved in a way that didn't feel too much like cheating to me, although I'd have to read the book again to see if I felt one could have put the clues together along the way; I certainly didn't spot many of the twists coming. Overall, a fun and engaging read.
I've one of the shortlisted novels left to read; I'm hoping the voter packet is going to be out soon, as otherwise tracking down all the shorter fiction categories is going to be tiresome...
This is a murder mystery set on a cruise liner in space; the interstellar liner is vast, and convincingly described, right down to how they manage to have sections with terran, lunar, and martian gravity. There are lots of nice details, some of which turn out to be relevant to the plot. I enjoyed each chapter starting with a cocktail recipe (some alcoholic, some not; most real, some fictional), some of which are quite funny (e.g. "Extra-Dry Martini. 2oz. gin. Stir over ice. Say the word 'vermouth'. Strain into martini glass"). There are parts of the described society that feel quite contemporary (e.g. courtesy masks are still widely available; most people are Mx. by default, and it is customary to include pronouns when introducing people), and the escalation of surveillance and counter-surveillance tech was pretty believable.
Tesla, the main protagonist, has PTSD and chronic pain from an earlier industrial accident (which we learn about as the plot advances), which is largely handled sensitively; although the hard-hearted critic might note that there are rarely any serious consequences from taking the safeties off her DBS pain relief system. She has a service dog, Gimlet, to help her with these conditions, and the incredibly cute Westie steals many of the scenes they appear in. Tesla is obviously also extremely wealthy, and not above using that wealth and status to get her own way. At times this goes beyond "interestingly flawed protagonist" into "really annoying protagonist", and definitely left me at times more "interested in the answer to the mystery" than "cares about wellbeing of protagonist".
The mystery is resolved in a way that didn't feel too much like cheating to me, although I'd have to read the book again to see if I felt one could have put the clues together along the way; I certainly didn't spot many of the twists coming. Overall, a fun and engaging read.
I've one of the shortlisted novels left to read; I'm hoping the voter packet is going to be out soon, as otherwise tracking down all the shorter fiction categories is going to be tiresome...
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