Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders, Band 1) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 3: The Midsolar Murders

Lafferty, Mur

 
9780593098110: Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders, Band 1)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593098110 ISBN 13: 9780593098110
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.
 
But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mur Lafferty is an author, podcaster, and editor. She has been nominated for many awards, and even won a few. She lives in Durham, NC with her family.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.

But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime―and fast―or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….

Mur Lafferty is an award-winning author of Solo: A Star Wars Novel and Hall of Fame podcaster. She’s the author of the Nebula- and Hugo-nominated finalist Six Wakes and the Shambling Guides series, and host of the popular Ditch Diggers and I Should Be Writing podcasts.

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1

Was Sherlock Lonely, Too?

Nobody ever believed murders "just happened" around Mallory Viridian.

Not at first, anyway.

Before 2032, she figured she was an unlucky kid in that she'd been adjacent to three deaths, at separate times. college, she witnessed four murders (unrelated) and, this time, helped solve them.

She began to worry after she solved her third and fourth cases: two unrelated murders while on a college summer trip. She wasn't trained in crime scene investigation and she wasn't even a big fan of mystery novels. Still, she was the only one to spot that the key clue to the murder of a room service waiter was not the shotgun, but a tacky, wet popsicle stick.

Despite this solve, the detectives were not impressed.

"I would have found it eventually," Detective Kelly Brady had barked, his cheeks still pink from being teased by a beat cop about the popsicle stick.

Even the investigators who accepted her help in solving cases didn't believe Mallory had done this before. She was twenty-two, a college dropout, and a civilian. What did she know about a murder investigation?

After she'd solved five cases, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation started getting interested in her.


Mallory knew what to expect when she pounded on Adrian Casserly-BerryÕs door at five in the morning local station time. He would crack the door, eyes slitted in suspicion; he would see her and relax, and the air of suspicion would ease and annoyance would take over.

And if he didn't come to the door, or told her what she didn't want to hear, she would have to figure things out on her own.

I could always run. The thought was always at the back of her mind.

But he would see her, she knew. Adrian tolerated her because she was the only other human he knew of aboard the Space Station Eternity, and even ambassadors got lonely. Even if he was missing only the superior feeling he got when he pulled ambassador rank on a civilian. He was important and had a job aboard the station, while Mallory was pretty much a leech on society, or a hobo at best. He had political power; she had nothing more than sanctuary.

Mallory had found that she could easily placate people like that by not threatening their power directly and reminding them constantly of their titles. "Ambassador Casserly-Berry!" she called. Then she pounded again.

She normally didn't ambush him early in the morning, but she'd been up to use the restroom and casually glanced at the news. After she'd translated the symbols, she ran down the station hallways in her pajamas to pound on his door. But the ambushing might work in her favor, she reasoned, since she usually could startle an honest answer out of him when he let his Important Ambassador mask slip.

He was taking a while. She wondered if he was coming out of a drunken sleep or wanted to get dressed before he answered the door. She guessed the former; few people stopped to get presentable when woken up early by insistent pounding.

It turned out it was both. The door finally slid open about four inches, and a bloodshot eye peered out. Mallory could smell vodka on his breath and took a cautious step backward. Adrian's eyes were thin with suspicion and barely concealed hostility. He saw her, relaxed, and then looked merely annoyed. But when he opened the door to her, not only was his hair combed, but he was wearing a dress shirt and blue trousers. A loose tie hung around his neck. Even hungover, he looked almost presentable, while she was still in the T-shirt and pajama bottoms she had slept in.

"Why are you dressed this early like you have a trust fund meeting?" she asked, baffled.

"Hedge fund," he corrected automatically. He sniffed. "I have an early meeting with station officials. What do you want, Mallory?"

She looked past him, trying to focus. She hated that he had been the one to throw her off, using nothing more than a tie and a comb. Still, judging by his looks, his hangover was a big one, and she could use that to her advantage.

"I figured you'd be in meetings all day, so I wanted to catch you beforehand," she said. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. "I have some human-related business. Can I come in, please?"

He didn't step aside. "What human-related business do you have that I don't already know about?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you," she said.

He sighed and stepped aside. The door opened all the way, and she stepped inside his quarters. The door slid closed behind her.

"God, it smells like my grandmother's freezer in here," she said, looking around his quarters. "Were you having a party of one?"

While stinking of vodka, his rooms still appeared neat and efficient (and larger than hers). The bed was made, the closet closed, the desk free of books or papers, the laptop turned off. Even the vodka bottles were arranged neatly, three full bottles on the right side of the small kitchenette sink, three empties on the left.

"Ms. Viridian, what do you want?" he asked stiffly. "I need to keep getting ready for my meeting. I like to look presentable before I leave my quarters. It shows people I respect them." He straightened his tie and cast a pointed look at her clothes.

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. We need to talk. Can I sit?"

"No, say what you need to and then go." He gestured toward the door and manually slid it open.

She flopped onto his one easy chair, trying to force a casual position. "When were you going to tell me about the humans?"

He paused for a moment and then closed the door again. "What other humans beyond you and me are you talking about?"

"Adrian, I found out about the shuttle," she snapped. "The shuttle full of vacationing humans on its way to the station, who's apparently now just letting anyone on. Don't act like you don't know."

His face, already pale, grew white, emphasizing the small mole on his cheek. "Tell me everything you know."

"What, that Eternity is changing its position on allowing humans as a species to come aboard? That we won't be the only people here very shortly? Tourists, diplomats, businesspeople, even the military!" She took a deep breath and forced herself to lower her voice. "How could you not tell me?"

He rubbed his face with both hands. "I don't know anything about this. How did you find out?"

"Are you kidding me? You're supposed to be negotiating for Earth tourism, and it's happening without you doing anything? What the hell have you been doing, if not that?"

"How did you know?" he yelled. "Why did they tell you and not me?"

She sat up straighter and held her hands out. "Whoa, hold on, it's okay. Sheesh. Are they really keeping you in the dark?" He nodded. "Okay, I've been trying to learn the station layout, iconography, and basic universal symbols, on top of the laws so I don't accidentally get arrested. Again. Anyway, the early news this morning said a human shuttle would be here shortly. I thought you would get a daily news briefing as part of your ambassadorial breakfast or whatever your routine is."

He stiffened. "I do. An ambassador's report is read to me every morning."

"It's read to you? You don't read it yourself?"

His pale face flushed, two red spots appearing on his cheeks. "The station host reads it to me," he said.

"So you meet with Ren and he tells you what he wants you to hear," she said. "You know he doesn't like us, right? That's exactly why I have been trying to get the news that everyone else on this damn station has, not just what he wants me to know. Why would you trust him?"

"That's not the point," Adrian said, looking down at the carpet as if it offended him.

"Yeah, the point is we have to stop them," Mallory said....

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593098110
ISBN 13 
9780593098110
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
464
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Bear Family Records GmbH
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info@bear-family.de

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