Prospector’s World

A young space crewman is tasked with solving a murder in Hendrix’s debut SF mystery, the first in a series.

Alejandro Detweiler is not meant for Earth. Like all Islanders—humans born and bred on the moons of Saturn—his purpose in life is to help sustain the planetary system’s extensive transactinide mining industry. Not content to spend his existence working on his family’s vegetable farm on the moon Dione, he joined the Aerospace Guard hoping for adventure. Now, he’s an engineer on the utility ship Custis, the most junior of the 12-man crew, toiling to keep the engines running as the craft cruises between moons. On his first flight, the Custis is diverted to the moon Janus, also known as the Prospector’s World. Dismissed by one of Al’s crewmates as “the System’s fastest route to bankruptcy,” Janus is a colony with 50 permanent occupants hoping to strike it rich. (“The runaways and castaways from every civilized place in the System…They’re at each other’s throats whenever they’re not digging for the next big TA strike, but they’d scream like banshees if you tried to force them off that rock.”) There’s been an accidental death: the local Justice, a government official appointed to oversee the colony. The death is suspicious enough for the Custis to take the body back to the spaceport, but its captain instructs Chief of the Ship Lionel Collins to remain behind and carry out the investigation, and Al to remain with him to serve as his eyes and ears. Not long after the ship leaves, Collins is attacked and incapacitated, leaving Al the lone guardsman left to solve the crime. To do so will require delving into the professional grudges and personal animosities of the local populace, which includes the hot-headed “constable,” a litigious prospector, and an assembly of back-stabbing minor officials. Al will have to be careful, since whoever took out Collins is surely planning to take out his assistant as well.

The author makes the most of his Saturnian setting, periodically reminding the reader of Janus’ crowded sky. “In the east, Epimetheus, Janus’s orbital twin, dominated the sky,” marvels Al. “Seemingly as large as my outstretched fist, it floated above the horizon, the brighter half lit by Saturn’s reflected glow, the dark remainder barely visible under the diminished light from the ring.” Eighteen-year-old Al makes for an unlikely detective; his ambition in joining up with the Aerospace Guards has nothing to do with law enforcement, and his attempts to navigate this strange community of characters—all memorably rendered by Hendrix—make for an intriguing fish-out-of-water tale. There’s great pleasure to be found in the procedural plot, in which the reader’s understanding of the world and the crime unfold at roughly the same pace. The story is largely about small-town claustrophobia, with themes of jealousy and resentment that would not be out of place in a yarn about an Old West boomtown or a quaint English village. The reader will hope further mysteries involving the young guardsman are in the works—after all, Saturn has some 270 other moons left to explore.

An immersive and entertaining mystery set on a moon of Saturn.