Kristine Kathryn Rusch
****
Well, I've come to the last of the Retrieval Artist novels, though it is actually the first after the original novella -- which is out of print. Now I have to wait for the next one to come out. That will probably be a while, so I'm feeling a little disappointed there isn't another one I can pick up and zip through. All of them have been well plotted with believable, interesting characters. I think even my daughters would like reading these books They certainly are as well written as many of the novels they read from the young adult section of the library.
Miles Flint has been promoted to detective to become partner to an experienced, but politically maladroit, detective named Noelle DeRichi's. DeRichi has a role in almost every subsequent book in the series, playing a big part in how those stories unfold. However, by the end of the novel Flint will have become a Retrieval Artist, employing the services of a retrieval artist who will become his mentor. As in all the other stories, Flint is a force for small justices in an unjust legal system that has been warped by the desire to have major trade relationships with foreign species. In this novel the affects of those agreements and relationships on normal human beings is laid out very well by Rusch. The alien species are the Disty, the Wyngrins, and the Revs, huge monstrous beings with six arms and a high regard for truth. The Disty have gotten their vengeance and the Wyngrins and Revs are after the children of "criminals" who have inadvertently made huge cross-cultural faux pas. Kidnapping, double crossing, and murder are all legal in this extremely multicultural future. The trick is preserving justice without getting caught. That's the central challenge for DeRichi and Flint.
