Esperance

This was a Twilight Zone NCIS episode? As a sci-fi noir-esque thriller, this book had me in its grip and wouldn’t let go. I loved that it was an investigative mystery where something real weird was obviously going on and they were trying to solve the weird with plain old human ingenuity. I loved that part of it.

The historical motivation of our main villain made sense but the book lost its punch when we finally caught up with the villain. It was all mystery until they were tied up listening to the villain monologue and from then on, it was merely action. I’m not opposed to leaning into that episodic mystery cliché if done well but the monologue halted the book’s momentum and then it was just sort of a stumble into the resolution.

The characters were intriguing in the beginning but their stories ultimately got dropped in favour of the historical plot line and were left with endings slapped onto their character arcs in the last handful of pages. Which was a touch disappointing and maybe would work better if I knew we were getting more episodic stories were their character arcs could continue.

All-in-all it was a quick read, entertaining, I enjoyed myself. I love sci-fi mysteries, I want more of them, and this definitely scratched that itch.