The Spare Man by by Mary Robinette Kowal, a review

We have a nightly routine at our house. My wife tends to go to bed before I do, and every night I read to her as she is getting ready for bed. For my birthday this year my wife bought me The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, and I started to read it. I had only gotten a couple of pages in when I thought, “this needs to be a night time reading book.” I knew my wife would like it, because I instantly recognized it as a bit of an homage to one of our favorite movie series. The title should have been a dead giveaway: The Spare Man. While not actually trying to do impressions of Myrna Loy and William Powell, while I was reading, I did try to channel their energy. And if you haven’t yet figured out what movie series I am talking about, I suggest you google William Powell and Myrna Loy, then watch the films!

Our protagonist is Tesla Crane a rich and famous roboticist who is on her honeymoon with her new spouse Shal who is a retired detective. Their honeymoon trip is on a cruise ship to Mars. Of course, there is a murder, or two, or three. Her husband is even considered a suspect by the incompetent security chief. Whereupon we meet Tesla’s lawyer, Fantine. Fantine is someone you want on your side in a fight. A tooth-and-nail legal pugilist who is not afraid to insult, threaten, and bully people being mean to her clients, and she does it in the most amusing way. Unfortunately, Fantine is frustrated by the time lag it takes to send and retrieve messages from Earth to halfway to Mars.

The thing that handicaps Tesla is . . . her handicap. As a result of a robotics experiment gone awry that happened several years before, Tesla is in constant pain from numerous back surgeries. And while she has an implant that can dial down the pain, if she dials it down too far she risks doing further damage to her back by not realizing she is doing further damage. She is helped by her service dog Gimlet. Gimlet is adored by almost all who meet her. Tesla is also hampered by the fact that she is a celebrity and is often mobbed by fans.

A rich field of side characters (potential suspects) rounds out the story. Each has enough backstory to make them interesting and make us suspicious. Part of the fun (for us, not Tesla) is trying to figure out who to trust.

Mary Robinette Kowal is an author that I have come to love over the past few years. Take away the science fiction aspect of this story and what you have is a perfectly good murder mystery that is just plain fun.

Star Liner

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