The disappeared

This is the prequel to Rusch's 2000 story, "The Retrieval Artist." As that was and is one of my favorite novellas of all time, I was eagerly anticipating this book, and not disappointed in the least.

Miles Flint is a first-year detective on the Moon Sector Police, with his tough experienced partner, Noelle DeRicci. Both are smart and somewhat on the fringe of the agency, and thus tend to pick up the cases others don't really want. As the book opens they are given a case in the Port, a mysterious vessel with three victims of a gruesome Disty vengeance killing inside. Almost immediately, more aliens and a beautiful woman on the run arrive to complicate matters.

Because in this future, humanity has made trading contracts with other species that allow them to use their own justice on humans who violate their laws. Once an appeal has been denied by the multicultural courts, the aggrieved party is allowed to take matters into their own hands however their laws see fit. Those humans can be pressed into slavery, messily executed along with everyone involved, have their children taken, or any other punishment, with impunity. Though few like it, for the most part the politicians and corporations have convinced people that it's necessary for progress. Meanwhile, quasi-legal Disappearance services have sprung up to shield and give new lives to people who are willing to pay.

As the cops try to prevent a diplomatic disaster, it slowly becomes obvious that all of this is related to a disappearance service selling out its clients, though the reader knew early on. Both work hard to keep such a stressful situation from spiraling out of control, even when they could step back; Flint proves his humanity in the end, and tries to help as many as he can. He doesn't entirely succeed, and not as well as he'd like, but it's more than anyone hoped for.

I can't say enough for this story. All of the characters are very real, the stress and worry etched into every page, hope rare but held onto tightly. Everyone has their own dark pasts, everyone their own mistakes that haunt them though they push it down. Seeing people with many different interests competing or working together or both. The story unfolds masterfully, weaving in and out of cultural and interpersonal relations, rules and regulations, philosophical conundrums, histories, desperate attempts to keep order, and it's always apparent that everyone wants to do the right thing, though only Flint is so willing to fight hard for what he believes in, then DeRicci, inspired by him and past caring about her future.

The reader is given a lot extra that the cops don't have, and in many ways this brings us to sympathize with the guilty and less likable protagonists. Even the woman in the first chapter, horrified to find her vessel abandoned to the Disty, and next seen brutally eviscerated... when later we find out it was all for teaching a Disty English. The prose is kept tight, clipping forward from the first page, taking only the short breathers that the heroes and the fugitives get. It's an effort just to set it down, no matter where you are. Even the exposition is fluidly intermixed with the story, so nothing feels rushed. The technology is neither overexplained nor silly, more of a setting for the characters than anything.

I recommend this to all. I cannot wait for the next installment, be it in short form or novel.