I don’t actually remember why I pulled down the sample on my Kindle, but the other night I finished another book, and found it, and thought “hell, why not read it?”

Yeah, that was a mistake. This is pitched as a locked-room-mystery space opera, but holy hell it’s a mess. There’s way too much extraneous plot, way too many characters without enough to do, and a really muddled ending. It’s very much a chain of Exciting! Plot! Developments! that are generally unearned, and when reveals happen they’re muted and not terribly interesting. I mean, sure, introduce an interstellar conspiracy 2/3 of the way through the book; why not?

This one’s the first one in a long time that reminds me of a quote usually attributed to Dorothy Parker: “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”