Second paragraph of third chapter:
They accessed the original police interview with the suspension scientist, Rima Cagnac, conducted by two Genovese Homicide inspectors a day after her husband’s murder and just five days before she was due to leave Earth. Apparently still in a state of shock, Cagnac answered all the questions factually, stating that she’d been in a meeting with Captain Xavier Fernandez at the time of the killing. The interview was in French, auto-translated for Kemp’s benefit, although he knew Danni understood the original. When asked about the state of her relationship with her late husband, Kemp noticed that Cagnac blinked and hesitated fractionally before replying, ambiguously, that after five years of marriage they remained good friends.
I don’t know about you, but I’m always annoyed by police detectives in SF novels who don’t behave at all like police detectives in real life. Anyway. Twin narratives of detective solving decades-old future crime and alien contact from Earth’s first colony ship, plus corruption and murder in high places. Kept me reading to the end, but it’s not very subtle. And did I mention that I found the police bit unrealistic?
Though I am vey sorry that we have lost Eric Brown since I read it.
