Duplicate Effort: A Retrieval Artist Novel

Duplicate Effort (2009) is the seventh SF novel in the Retrieval Artist series, following Recovery Man. In the previous volume, Yu takes Rhonda to the moon Io to give her to the Gyonnese. The Gyonnese questioned whether Rhonda was really alive and reduced the amount that they paid Yu. Rhonda woke in the moving crate and learned where she was. She listened to the Gyonnese conversation and decided that they were going to learn where she had hidden Emmeline. So she committed suicide to protect her daughter. In this novel, Miles Flint is a Retrieval Artist on the Moon. He is now the parent of a teenage daughter. Talia is quite proficient with computers for her age. Talia Shindo is the sixth clone of Emmeline, the daughter of Flint and Rhonda. She is younger that her original -- thirteen instead of sixteen -- and now lives with Flint. Ki Bowles is a news media journalist. She had been employed by InterDome Media, but was fired over the DeRicci debacle and other problems. Now she is working with Flint to bring down the WSX law firm. Noelle DeRicci is the Moon Security Chief for the United Domes. She is beginning to think politically. She is also very fond of Nyquist. Bartholomew Nyquist is a detective in the Armstrong Police Department. He is a loner, never keeping a partner very long. He also doesn't like politics. Yet he does like Noelle. Justinian Wagner is the senior partner of the Wagner, Stuart and Xendor law firm. He is very powerful within the Alliance, especially since his father and mother died {see Paloma). In this story, Ki Bowles has just released the first of her series on WSX. She and her bodyguards are going to the Hunting Club for a celebratory dinner. Then two men kill her on the grounds of the club. Nyquist is called in on the murder. When he arrives, the ground keeping devices are destroying evidence. He sends a uniform to request that the equipment be turned off. The Hunting Club refuses to acquiesce to this request. When Nyquist goes himself, he also is refused. The club is very exclusive and has an influential membership, so Nyquist calls Noelle to order the devices to be inactivated. Flint enjoys having his very enthusiastic daughter living with him. She wants to learn everything he knows about computers. Unfortunately, she has been trying to stow away on ships going to Earth. Today he goes to visit his old friend Murray in Traffic to pick up Talia. This time she posed as a passenger and almost got away with it. On the way back home, she finally confesses that she has located two of her clone siblings and is trying to reach them. Flint tries again to tell her that she is risking the life of Emmeline. If Talia can find her fellow clones, she could also discover her original. Once such data is found, others will start looking. The Gyonnese would still like to find Emmeline and take her away from her adopted parents. Then Flint learns about the Bowles murder. Naturally, his first opinion i

This is part of a series that got me hooked. I zoomed through all the installments and I hope that Rusch will keep them coming! I didn't read them in order (for reasons too boring to relate) but it would be somewhat better if you do.

If you are a fan of this series, you will probably enjoy this book a lot (like I did). In a lot of ways, it wraps things up. Indeed, it feels like it might be the end of the series (for at least a while, maybe?) But as a mystery goes, there's not a lot of substance to it. The answer is incredibly obvious, and yet, the police somehow overlook this until the very end. I was expecting more. The main reason to read this novel is the author is great at creating characters you care about. So you keep turning the pages to find out what happens to them, not so much the mystery.

I really like this series and recommend it highly. The author does a good job in helping the audience get a good sense of the races that are introduced. You will like Miles Flint and his former partner. Miles is a good guy with a strong moral code that makes him try to do the right thing, even if he has to go around the law to do it. I recommend reading the books in order as the characters and their interactions develop and change as they go along.

Ms. Rusch continues to do an excellent job of creating a sense of actually being on the Moon. Definitely not the book one should start with, but a logical extension of the earlier ones given the future culture she has developed. As the parent of two adult daughters, the interactions between Miles and Talia ring very true to me for challenges from those years. While this episode did not have the direct involvement of alien races found in the earlier installments of the series, their echoes rippled through this volume, creating temporary misdirections for the reader. While the ending did seem a little hurried, that is a rather minor flaw in what for me was a very satisfying 'whodunit.'