author : Timothy Zahn

Contents (possible spoilers)

• Time Bomb. 1988

• Ernie. 1979

• Raison D'Etre. 1981

• The Price of Survival. 1981

• Between a Rock and a High Place. 1982

• Houseguest. 1982

• The President's Doll. 1987

• Banshee. 1987

Contents (possible spoilers)

• The Giftie Gie Us. 1981

• The Dreamsender. 1980

• The Energy Crisis of 2215. 1981

• Return to the Fold. 1984

• The Shadows of Evening. 1983

• Not Always to the Strong. 1986

• The Challenge. 1980

• The Cassandra. 1983

• Dragon Pax. 1982

• Job Inaction. 1981

• Teamwork. 1984

• The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment. 1983

• Cascade Point. 1983

Contents (possible spoilers)

• Guardian Angel. 1986

• Red Thoughts at Morning. 1981

• Dark Thoughts at Noon. 1982

• Black Thoughts at Midnight. 1992

• The Peaceful Man. 1982

• The Evidence of Things Not Seen. 1986

• Expanded Charter. 1983

• Final Solution. 1982

• Pawn's Gambit. 1982

Roger and Caroline Whittier, a couple whose marriage is beginning to go sour, are walking home from a play when they get mugged. Only this mugger, after holding them up at gun-point, gives them his gun and puts them in charge of Melantha, an unconscious and injured girl, then disappears. This is no ordinary girl: she is supposed to be a sacrifice to stop a war between the Greens and Grays, ancient non-human clans living secretly in New York. Now both sides want her back to complete the sacrifice, and others want her so that they can stop the sacrifice and start the war, and yet others want her so that ... well, it's up to Roger and Caroline to work together to figure out what's going on, and who the good guys are, before New York melts down in the biggest gang war ever.

This is fun. The various factions are complicated, and all have different motives, and everyone is trying to trick everyone else, and no-one is a caricatured villain. The Green and Gray abilities are used well to further the plot, and some of the technology is interesting. I do think that the protagonists figure various clues out a bit too easily: sure, they have all the information, but they manage to put them together the right way with rather too much ease. And the final confrontation is maybe just a little too easy. But on the whole, an interesting furtive alien battle taking place on the streets of new York in a post-9/11 jittery time.

Frank Compton, discharged Terran intelligence agent, is expecting the stranger maybe to attack, but not to fall dead at his feet, and certainly not to have an interstellar quadrail ticket in Compton's name to the newest Earth colony. But he decides to go on the trip, where he discovers that the "Spiders", enigmatic controllers of the quadrail, want to employ him to prevent a war between two of the other species in the Empire. He decides to play along, despite having another mission entirely to discharge, and sets off to investigate. He soon discovers no one is telling the truth, and several factions want him dead. But where are the warmongers?

This is a fun hard boiled detective space opera style story, with loads of clues and red herrings, and lots of interesting aliens. Because of its hard boiled style, the first person narration is a little flat, but that's okay. And there are plenty of double crosses and deeper plots to keep the pages turning.

Frank Compton and his assistant Bayta are off to help a colleague destroy the coral basis of Modhri, the secret hive mind enemy, when a billionaire art collector is beaten to death on the quadrail, and Frank is the chief suspect. Fired by his mysterious employers, Frank must chase down the elusive Third MacGuffin before the Modhri finds it.

Lots of to-ing and fro-ing through the quadrail system, weird encounters, and desperate escapes, as Compton uses his superior deductive skills to slowly figure out what it actually going on (with the Modhri, if not with Bayta).

Frank Compton finds a surprise guest in his flat: a woman holding his own gun on him. She is after his help to rescue a 10 year old girl from the planet New Tigris. But Compton is exhausted, and suspicious of a plot from the sinister alien Modrhi. So he brushes her off, telling her to contact the police. A few hours later he is roused from sleep, to be questioned about the murder of two people with his gun. This sets in motion yet another race against time through the interstellar Quadrail system, as he and his assistant Bayta attempt to rescue the girl and foil the Modrhi's latest plot.

More chasing, plot twists and turns, and hard-boiled detection across interstellar space, with an interesting addition twist at the end.