a paperback from DAW SF published 2010 – reviewed by Lyn McConchie.
Tanya Huff produces great books! Here and there, there have been ones I didn’t much like, nothing against her writing, just that the characters didn’t grab me quite as strongly as usual. But this book isn’t one of them. Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr has finally left the marines and joined her partner in his salvage business. But you never really leave the marines, not when you find that salvage operators are being raided and murdered by pirates, and especially not when you find out why. Not just for the loot, but for what they know – which could lead to a civilian war in her sector.
It’s possible she’d have overlooked events, but when the pirates attack her ship, leave her for dead and kidnap her partner, Torin sets out to find them, sort out their motives, and make them pay. To help her she calls in old friends from her previous time in the marines. What happens after that is a mad ride of politics, mystery, murder, and a number of characters without which space would be vastly improved.
By the time Torin is through, things are improved, her partner has been retrieved (minus a toe) their ship will be retrieved, (with pirate damage repaired) and Torin has a new official position – which looks like producing a whole string more of great books. I can’t be certain of that of course, Tanya Huff has a habit of writing just so many books about any character, then rounding things off and that’s it. But this looks promising and I really hope that she’ll stay with Torin, Craig, and the others, for a while yet.
This books is Recommended, as is the ‘Valor’ series, also her ‘keeper chronicles’ – for cat-lovers in particular.
