TITANBORN

A futuristic thriller set in a solar system teetering on the brink of revolution.

Malcom Graves is a collector for Pervenio, one of the handful of powerful corporations that runs the solar system. Three hundred years ago, a meteorite nearly destroyed life on Earth, and a spaceship carried a few thousand people to Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. The two civilizations developed separately for centuries, but now, Earthers returning to Saturn’s Ring have taken Ringers’ jobs and brought in diseases the Ringers’ immune systems can’t handle. Malcom’s job is to put down strikes, chase criminals, and generally keep order among the restless outworlders. After a job on a mining asteroid goes bad, Malcom is on a mandatory vacation just in time for M-Day, the anniversary of the day the meteorite hit—and just in time to be on the scene when a bomb hits the celebrations in New London. Soon, Malcom is back on the clock, unraveling a plot that turns out to be much bigger than just one bomb. And he’s saddled with a new partner, Zhaff, the product of the top-secret Cogent Initiative, who’s as efficient, and as humorless, as an android. The stakes aren’t fully clear until midway through the book, which undermines the suspense. But Malcom is a classic hard-bitten hero, Zhaff is an intriguing presence, and the plot moves along briskly.

This solar-system–spanning mystery will scratch the genre itch.