In this milieu, on the world of Devanta, private eye Blaine Donne, ex-military man, is a bit of an anomaly, a loner and skeptic, with only his AI Max as companion and helper. When we first encounter him, he's broke and between cases. But then he gets several dumped into his lap at once. A "grande dame" named Seldara Tozzi wants Donne to vet her great-granddaughter's fiancee. Then a mysterious entity lurking behind a virtual disguise suggests Donne investigate an entertainment concern named Eloi Enterprises, its hireling Judeon Maraniss, and their scheme dubbed "Elysium." Flush with cash, Donne sets about his sleuthing.

But various attacks on his person, virtual and physical, arise to discourage him. Perhaps the most intriguing and baffling assault is the instance where he's teleported by unknown means right out of a moving car and into a swarm of killer insects. Still, Donne is not one to be discouraged, and his bulldog pursuit of various leads—with some help from his sister Krij and her business partner Siendra, both "regulatory compliance auditors"—eventually reveals that the secret project known as Elysium could spell doom for galactic civilization.

All will culminate, for good or ill, in an armed invasion of a mysterious installation named Time's End.

A mannerpunk Maltese Falcon

The conventional format and function and frissons of the private-eye novel are well established, still fruitful after umpteen excursions over nearly a century. Our "tarnished knight" hero will traverse various milieus and layers of society, encountering a plethora of colorful characters, gathering his hard-won data bit by bit while fending off assaults, eventually piecing together an entire shocking tale of crime or greed or decadence. The reader is invited to match wits as well.

L.E. Modesitt plainly has a good handle on this modality—especially in its science-fictional hybrid form, pioneered by Asimov and others—and he takes the additional complexifying step of making the cultural setting of Devanta be a quasi-European, very mannerist one. This results in a book with affinities to both the "Thousand Cultures" novels of John Barnes and the "mannerpunk" fantasies of Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer. Nor does Modesitt neglect actual SF conceits, employing personal force-shields out of some Charles Harness classic and John-Varleyan gender-bending.

But the whole result is, despite all the ingenuity, rather uninspiring. Here's why:

The culture of Devanta is just not exotic enough. Whereas we long for something akin to the milieu of Jack Vance's "The Moon Moth," we merely get tired Graustarkian nobility.

The villains are onstage either too much or not enough. How can this be? Well, Modesitt deviates from Donne's first-person narrative for several interpolated chapters in favor of Judeon Maraniss's point of view. The banality of this figure and his boss Legaar proves to be underwhelming, hence "not enough." But we also learn key secrets about the mystery ahead of Donne, hence "too much."

And while Modesitt's SF conceits hang together well and are logically assembled, it's all off-the-shelf space-opera equipment, with nothing radically awesome.

Finally, Blaine Donne is just not the compelling "man of shadows" Modesitt casts him as. His psychic wounds are all shallow, his bluff competence undistinguished.

On a scene-by-scene level, Modesitt delivers a modicum of thrills, and the novel provides some intermittently stimulating fun. But the combination of lackluster milieu, spilled secrets and dun Donne result in a missed opportunity.