An adult and thought-provoking sci-fi krimi. Recommended for adults.
I found myself squirming several times when reading it, tempted to put it aside, but then I realised it was getting under my skin and that was the point. Chapeaux!
Moreover the characterisations of the human protagonists are credible and the plot twists and turns follow the two rules of Sherlock Holmes: there is a logical explanation to everything and nothing is as it seems. That all adds up to a four-star review.
In a future universe there are many species who trade and cohabit the same planets with multi-cultural laws to regulate dealings and to settle disputes. The distant Multi-Cultural Tribunal issues absolute and binding rulings and warrants and it falls to the local police to enforce them, no questions asked.
Many misunderstandings arise in business transactions and in cohabitation, and there are many active warrants, which never expire. The punishments the other species apply are, well, inhuman. For several of the species apprehension of a violator is a matter of honor and no effort or expense is spared in pursuit. In some alien legal codes, ignorance is no defence. A guilty mind is not necessary.
One generation of entrepreneurs sees in this situation a market gap. Secret companies emerge to help those targeted by a warrant to disappear (and start a new life elsewhere), a relocation service for the guilty, not for witnesses.
There are many sources of tension in the setup. There are several mysteries for the police to unravel. Negotiations with two separate sets of aliens each sensitive to the least cultural slight. There is the Earth Alliance government, remote and inaccessible, for which keeping the peace by adhering to the strict letter of the Multi-Cultural Tribunal warrant is paramount. The fate that awaits those apprehended does not bear thought.
The more so because several of the species in the Tribunal act on inter-generational justice. Like Chinese emperors of old and North Korean dictators of today, they have justice to the third, fourth, fifth degree, or more. Huh? That means the punishment often falls on relatives of the culprit, relatives who themselves did nothing and may not even know the culprit. For those who shelter from the news, it is common in North Korea for the sins of the father to fall alike on daughters and grandsons. When the father is executed so are his children and grandchildren to eradicate the line. Now imagine being an officer who rounds up the babes in arms for execution.
In this novel one of the felons to be surrendered is a baby. Another is a woman who cut down a tree, only later to be told it was a sacred relic. In the law of that alien world ignorance is no defence. Still others did in fact kill a member of another species in a drunken fight over money. And so on. All of the felons in this novel are guilty but that does not make any of it easier.
All of this comes to a head because a second generation of entrepreneurs has emerged and decided to increase value for shareholders by selling-out the disappeared ones to their pursuers.
While it is illegal to help felons disappear, it is perfectly legal to sell them out.
What a beautiful scheme. The credits flow in drowning out the screams of those who disappeared and now are found. Disembowelment, babies surgically modified to become alien, condemnation to mortal slave labor, or shot on the spot are among the punishments for the humans apprehended, all compliant with the ruling of the Tribunal. The job of the local police is to hand over the felons.
Those who had successfully disappeared for decades are now sought and arrested. The human police execute the warrants of several alien species on a Moonbase. So many that they cannot keep up. One asks why low level police officer negotiate with aliens, but the answer is perfectly sensible bureaucratic logic. No more senior official wants to get involved in such distasteful and explosive business, so it is shoved down the line. That will be familiar to anyone who has worked in a large organisation.
This is the first is a long-running series.
K. K. Rusch.
It is well written though I flipped some pages quickly as there is nothing special in much of it, and too much musing by some of the characters for my taste, but mercifully shorn of mindless descriptions that bedevil so much of the krimi genre these days. The dialogue is functional. The author does not try to describe the aliens apart from some vague outlines, the Rev, the Disty, and the Wynin. Just enough to make clear that they are alien, not humans with heavy make-up. That is altogether an intelligent decision.
I particularly liked the senior investigating officer DeRicci and her one-way ticket approach, and the Retrieval Artist in the last pages. The last scene was a surprise and a nice coda to much that went before.
When I read the title ‘The Disappeared’ my first thought was all those who have disappeared from military regimes in Latin America, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and…..
A sobering reminder that there are worse governments than the local mob.
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