Chaos Terminal
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, and fled to outer space to avoid it…but when one of the new human arrivals on a space shuttle is murdered, she’s back in the game.
Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, thank you very much. But no matter what she does, people persist in dying around her—and only she seems to be able to solve the crime. After fleeing to an alien space station in hopes that the lack of humans would stop the murders, a serial killer had the nerve to follow her to Station Eternity. (Mallory deduced who the true culprit was that time, too.)
Now the law enforcement agent who hounded Mallory on Earth has come to Station Eternity, along with her teenage crush and his sister, Mallory’s best friend from high school. Mallory doesn’t believe in coincidences, and so she’s not at all surprised when someone in the latest shuttle from Earth is murdered. It’s the story of her life, after all.
Only this time she has more than a killer to deal with. Between her fugitive friends, a new threat arising from the Sundry hivemind, and the alarmingly peculiar behavior of the sentient space station they all call home, even Mallory’s deductive abilities are strained. If she can’t find out what’s going on (and fast), a disaster of intergalactic proportions may occur.…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lafferty's rip-roaring second Midsolar Murders mystery (after Station Eternity) returns to the sentient space station Eternity, where reluctant sleuth Mallory Viridian contends with a cunning killer, a lost love, and a plethora of charming aliens. Because of Mallory's unwitting connection to the Sundry, a wasplike hive mind, murders follow her wherever she goes—and she can't resist investigating them. To escape all the death, she fled Earth for Station Eternity, a diplomatic outpost established to test the possibilities of coexistence between galactic-roaming species and a few fractious earthlings. Now, however, new humans are coming aboard—among them Mallory's former best friend, her teenage crush, and an odious gossipmonger who turns up dead at the welcoming party. Of course, Mallory is drawn into the case. Lafferty does a solid job blending sci-fi worldbuilding and homicide investigation, though the plot feels a bit padded with flashbacks to Mallory's past. Still, the colorful cast delights, replete with irresistible aliens who are mostly mystified by human behaviors, self-doubting AI space vehicles, and quirky human scientists, diplomats, and CIA agents. This whirlwind adventure is good fun.
