We open aboard the starship Polaris, which has been chartered for a scientific mission. In the star system known as Delta Karpis, the primary star is being eaten alive by a white dwarf star, and the seven people aboard the Polaris are there to record the cataclysm from various perspectives. One of the scientists on board, named Tom Dunninger, seems on the verge of perfecting immortality. The other savants are equally respected in their fields. And then there's Maddy English, top-notch hyperluminal pilot.
The resulting stellar catastrophe goes off as predicted, and no harm comes to the Polaris, which lingers a while after all the other observer ships have gone. Only then does tragedy strike. A faster-than-light broadcast announces that the Polaris is finally ready to head home. But the ship never arrives. A rescue mission finds it empty but undamaged, an interstellar Marie Celeste.
Sixty years pass, and now our focus is on the antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his lovely assistant, Chase Kolpath, residents of the planet Rimaway. (The book is narrated by Chase.) The Polaris mystery has never been solved, so the authorities have finally given up, agreeing to release all the personal effects of the missing people into the open market for collectors. Naturally, Alex smells a profit. He and Chase manage to purchase several items, securing them before all the others are mysteriously destroyed in an explosion. Now Alex's trove becomes even more valuable. But it's not just collectors who are interested. An enigmatic man and woman are on the trail of the dispersed artifacts as well. It seems the Polaris mystery is still relevant after all.
Eventually, Chase and Alex find their very lives threatened by conspirators who wish the secrets of Polaris to remain hidden. This danger naturally whets their appetite for a solution. They embark full-time on sleuthing, despite such deadly "warnings" as sabotaged aircraft and spacecraft. They interview a wide number of people across Rimaway and off-world. Gradually a picture begins to emerge. The "victims" of the Polaris were really complicit in their fate. And some of them might very well be alive—and plotting—today!
Murder will always be murder
Jack McDevitt's work reads a lot like that of Isaac Asimov: plainly wrought, scientifically scrupulous, logical yet tricky. On the front cover of this book, Stephen King even proclaims McDevitt an heir to Asimov's lineage. It's only natural, then, that McDevitt would turn his hand to an SF-mystery hybrid, much the way Asimov did with his pioneering The Caves of Steel (1954) and its sequels. Ultimately, McDevitt's book does not deliver quite the same punch as the master's. But it's still an entertaining romp.
Let's examine the SF side of the novel first.
McDevitt's milieu is a richly described galactic confederacy roughly 6,000 years removed from us. But despite the distance in time and technology, it's hardly a post-Singularity scenario. Life and humanity are pretty much as we know them today, despite the trappings of instant interstellar travel and Turing-level artificial intelligences. Money, courtship, employment, education and law enforcement, among other things, remain the same as in our time. Twentieth-century citizens would feel right at home. Sometimes there even seem to be built-in retrogressive attitudes, as when Chase comments that a starship pilot must have adequate color vision, but that such a faculty cannot be sanctioned through surgery, even though the surgery is perfect. Why? Just to provide a plot point, apparently. There are a few screwy cults around, lending a mild Jack Vance atmosphere to the proceedings. But it's more the beginner Jack Vance of the "Magnus Ridolph" tales than the genius Vance of his prime.
But all this is OK. We've seen plenty of enjoyable space operas, Star Trek not the least among them, that feature comforting points of familiarity. What about the mystery aspect of McDevitt's book?
First off, there's nothing noir about it, unless you count the kind of complexifications that Chandler used to favor, which legendarily often ended up baffling even the author. At one point, Chase complains that her head is spinning trying to keep all the suspects straight, and yours might be as well. McDevitt's brand of mystery, if not fully "cozy," owes more to Agatha Christie and Rex Stout than to Hammett and Cain. Additionally, by having the tale narrated by the "Watson" figure, who, in this case, possesses no great insights into her boss's psyche, the "Holmes" figure comes out as remote and rather cipherish at times. And when Alex has to come fully into the spotlight for the climax, this move necessitates the awkward switch from first-person narration by Chase to a dry transcript of Alex's post-climax journal entry!
But if you combine the mildly intriguing SF aspects with the mildly intriguing detective aspects of the novel, you get a synergy that makes the whole a fairly pleasurable experience. Just don't expect The Naked Sun (1957).
Sometimes McDevitt, like all writers, gets attached to a phrase and won't let it go. I know I saw the metaphor of a gruesome death being equivalent to getting "tossed from an aircar" three separate times. But generally he achieves a transparent prose that invites the reader generously in. — Paul
