Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by a formidable no-nonsense auntie of a detective
A mind is a terrible thing to erase…
Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.
Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.
Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…
Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, this novella is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’s next installment.
Dear Ms. Waite,
It’s been a while since I read “Hen Fever,” but like that one, the cover and blurb for this one caught my eye. It’s sort of a cozy, closed spaceship, murder mystery investigation novella that drops a reader straight into the action and (thankfully) skimps on info-dumping.
Dorothy Gentleman is startled to “come to” in a body that isn’t hers. For over three hundred years, she and roughly 10,000 other passengers have been on the Fairweather, a ship transiting space to a new planet (though it’s never explained why but it doesn’t seem, due to something Dorothy says, that the passengers had to go). Usually when minds/memories are transferred into a new body, the body isn’t really new, just a replacement version of the old one they had. So this unknown body is mystery number one.
Her nephew, Rutherford – aka Ruthie – is one of the brilliant minds behind the ship. He and his brilliant friends have a group, the Antikythera Club (look up the Antikythera mechanism if you’ve never heard about it) where they toss around brilliant ideas. Since what happened to Dorothy is not supposed to happen, she queries Ferry (the ship) and realizes that strange things have happened since her last “death” two years ago.
Dorothy is an investigator and discovers – mystery number two – a woman has been murdered shortly before Dorothy awoke in this not-hers body. Checking out the scene leaves her more confused. Heading to Ruthie’s apartment, she meets his new lover, John, and gets some information from Ruthie that explains why she’s in the not-hers body. But who is the woman whose body Dorothy is in? Why are there strange gaps in the business records of the murdered woman? Mystery number three. And can someone have figured out how to truly murder someone on this ship?
As I said, the reader gets dropped straight into the action with as little information as Dorothy has. Part of the fun is imagining this vast spaceship that can hold 10,000 people and is basically an interstellar city. Life here has been carefully crafted for the good of all. Basic needs are met for all but people can dream up and engage in businesses and side hustles if they want.
Dorothy knows something is going on besides the murder of a passenger and her own sudden insertion into a strange body. But what? From the reactions of others to her “body,” it’s clear that the woman who actually should be there has some tetchy/sketchy relations and relationships going on. Dorothy will have to use her detecting skills and some subtlety to figure it all out.
All of the clues needed are provided along the way but readers will have to watch as Dorothy puts everything together. I got hints and ideas about what might be happening but pretty much just sat, read, and enjoyed Dorothy at work. The scope of the crime is beyond what I was expecting and it was exciting to watch Dorothy fit the puzzle together and see that what justice is possible, is done.
Dorothy is a delightful character and the book ends with her maybe, possibly, potentially looking at a new relationship. After all, this is listed as book 1. I really hope there will be more Dorothy stories to come. B+
~Jayne
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Jayne
Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there’s no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.
