A new Retrieval Artist story!

Publication year: 2012
Format: Audio
Publisher: Audible
Narrator: Jay Snider
Running Time: 10 hrs and 3 minutes

The story starts three years before the rest of the story on Callisto, Jupiter’s moon, with detective Iniko Zagrando whom we met in a previous book, the Retrieval Man. He’s actually working as a spy for the Earth Intelligence and his handler Ike Jarvis wants to send him to another assignment. Zagrando disagrees but Jarvis arranges for Zagrando’s death, using his clone so the former detective has no choice. He’s sent to infiltrate the Black Fleet, the most notorious and feared criminal organization operating currently.

Six months has gone by since the domes on the Moon were bombed during the Anniversary Day, but people investigating the terrorist act aren’t any closer to finding the people responsible. Even the investigators from the Earth Alliance haven’t found anything significant. Also, the bombings were done by clones of a famous murderer and people’s opinion has turned against all clones.

Noelle DeRicci is the chief of security for the United Domes of the Moon doesn’t like the Earth Alliance investigators and doesn’t want to deal with them at all. She also has to deal with the local political fallout from the bombing.

The Retrieval Artist Miles Flint is in DeRicci’s small group of investigators but even he has found mostly dead ends. However, then he’s contacted by one of the Moon’s criminal bosses who has information and possible leads. Flint knows that DeRicci wouldn’t want to work with the suspected criminal but Flint thinks that their time to solve the bombing is running out. He’s ready to do almost anything to keep his daughter safe.

Flint’s daughter Talia is a clone. Flint’s wife cloned her without Flint’s knowledge and she came to his life recently. Talia is still recovering from her mother’s death and adjusting to living with her father whom she’s known for only a short time. She’s intelligent and is bored by her school work. She’d much rather help her father investigate the bombing. In her school, kids are accusing twins of being terrorists and bullying them. Talia is terrified that they will find out that she’s a clone.

Meanwhile, a scientist on Payla might have some answers to the investigators.

Like in the previous books in this series, the book has a lot of different point-of-view characters and situations which at first look very different from each other. However, they’re very much related to each other. The plot is fast paced and has lots of twist and turns.

Most of the plots deal with the terrorist act and the investigators who try to uncover the people responsible. However, Talia’s part of the story tell the way that the bombing has affected the people living on the Moon. They are more suspicious of outsiders and laws against clones have become harsher, even though only specific clones were involved with the bombing. That’s a very realistic reaction.

I’ve enjoyed this series a lot with the great combination of Moon habitats, very unhuman like aliens, and the very human human characters. Blowback is a very satisfying continuation to the series. I’ve really enjoyed the books which center on a different alien race, such as the Disty in “Buried Deep”. This time we get to know more about Payty (spelling? Peyty? Payti?) who are very rules bound and non-violent. Currently.

I recommend starting the series with the first book: “the Disappeared”.

The author’s site has an excerpt: http://kriswrites.com/2012/11/20/monthly-novel-excerpt-blowback-a-retrieval-artist-novel/