Customer Reviews

The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel

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The Disappeared is the first novel in the Retrieval Artist series. It is the story of people who have been helped to disappear in order to escape alien justice. As humans go to the stars, they find alien sentients with their own body of law. The humans agree to abide by local laws, but later find that these laws are sometimes illogical, inhumane, and bloody. Thus, disappearance services are created to provide a new identity, a new job, and a new home for humans who are hunted by the aliens.

Miles Flint is a newly promoted detective in the Moon Police. One morning, he and his partner, Noelle DeRicci, are sent to the Port to deal with a multiple killing in a space yacht. While there, they are asked to check a ship picked up by the Border Patrol with aliens and two kidnapped children onboard. Later, a very terrified woman lands an unmarked ship at the Port. Flint discovers that all three cases have a common element: they all involve the Disappeared.

This novel is a good read, with believable characters. Flint is getting more antsy as things progress and DeRicci is maybe even more disturbed by the events. Everybody else hates the situation, but sees no way to change it; they figure its a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Recommended for anyone who likes stories with decent people trying to deal fairly with an inherently unfair situation.

This is the prequel to Rusch's 2000 story, "The Retrieval Artist." As that was and is one of my favorite novellas of all time, I was eagerly anticipating this book. I was not disappointed in the least.

Miles Flint is a first-year detective on the Moon Sector Police, with his tough experienced partner, Noelle DeRicci. Both are smart and somewhat on the fringe of the agency, and thus tend to pick up the cases others don't really want. As the book opens they are given a case in the Port, a mysterious vessel with three victims of a gruesome Disty vengeance killing inside. Almost immediately, a call comes in that Wygnin have been brought in with children but without the proper warrants. They have to be brought into custody until the warrants can be confirmed, though really, Flint and DeRicci just want to stall them with the slight hope they can get them out of it.

Because in this future, humanity has made trading contracts with other species that allow them to use their own justice on humans who violate their laws. Once an appeal has been denied by the multicultural courts, the aggrieved party is allowed to take matters into their own hands however their laws see fit. Those humans can be pressed into slavery, messily executed along with everyone involved, have their children taken, or any other punishment, with impunity. Though few like it, for the most part the politicians and corporations have convinced people that it's necessary for progress. However, in the wake of this, various quasi-legal Disappearance services have sprung up to shield and give new lives to people who are willing to pay.

Soon yet another case is plopped right into the duo's lap, this time of a cunning woman claiming to be on the run from the Rev, another alien species. The keep watch on her, but she surprises DeRicci with a laser pistol on the way to the station and escapes. The whole patrol is on the lookout for her, the base is locked down, Flint is with the chief doing damage control in his blunt way. Meanwhile the Rev show up and he has to run to placate them, while DeRicci tries to deal with the Wygnin and their targets. Both groups are angry and short-tempered, the two officers toeing the line to a diplomatic disaster. It slowly becomes obvious that all of this is related to a disappearance service selling out its clients (though it's revealed to the reader much earlier).

Both work hard to keep such a stressful situation from spiraling out of control, even though they'd be within the law to do nothing. In the end Flint proves his humanity, and generally tries to help as many as he can; he doesn't entirely succeed, and he doesn't as well as he'd like, but it's the best he could and by far more than anyone hoped for.

I can't say enough for this story. All of the characters are very real, the stress and worry etched into every page, hope rare but held onto tightly. Everyone has their own dark pasts, everyone their own mistakes that haunt them though they push it down. Seeing people with many different interests competing or working together or both. The story unfolds masterfully, weaving in and out of cultural and interpersonal relations, rules and regulations, philosphocal conundrums, histories, desperate attempts to keep order, and it's always apparent that everyone wants to do the right thing, though only Flint is so willing to fight hard for what he believes in, and DeRicci, inspired by him and past caring about her future.

The reader is given a lot extra that the cops don't have, and in many ways this brings us to sympathize with the guilty and less likable protagonists. Even the woman in the first chapter, horrified to find her vessel abandoned to the Disty, and next seen brutally eviscerated... and later we find out it was all for teaching a Disty English. The prose is kept tight, clipping forward from the first page, taking only the short breathers that the heroes and the fugitives get. It's an effort just to set it down, no matter where you are. Even the exposition is fluidly intermixed with the story, so nothing feels rushed. The technology is neither overexplained nor silly, light enough to keep a non-technical reader comfortable.

I recommend this to all. I cannot wait for the next installment, be it in short form or novel.

Humans have expanded into space, but dealing with their alien neighbors has taken a lot of negotiation. Alien justice is harsh, but humans agree to abide by their laws and punishments for the sake of trade. The Rev have brutal work camps, the Wygnin take children to pay for the crimes of their parents, and the Ditsy have gruesome vengeance killings. Humans who willingly or unknowingly break an alien law must submit to the sentence or disappear.

Miles Flint and his partner Noelle DeRicci are detectives on the Moon; within a few short days, they are drawn into three cases of alien justice - an unusually high percentage. One involves a woman, Ekaterina, who is trying to disappear to avoid the Rev; the two others involve people who have been hiding for years. As DeRicci tries to track down Ekaterina, Flint tries to figure out how to avoid turning a baby over to the Wygnin while working to solve the connection between the three cases.

The Disappeared functions fairly well as a detective partner story with DeRicci as the embittered veteran and Flint as the newly promoted rookie. Plenty of tension is provided through checkered pasts, irritable aliens, uncaring bureaucracy, and the occasionally convenient loss of communications. Rusch deals well with the emotional turmoil involved in having to support alien laws that seem immoral and are quite accurately described as inhumane, especially as the detectives get more involved in the cases. The characters are fairly well drawn - they are all basically decent, real people facing difficult situations and haunted by their pasts. I'd like to know more about the aliens - we're really just introduced to them in this book. I have to wonder if there are any aliens in Rusch's universe that are even-tempered and reasonable by our terms.

This is the first novel in the Retrieval Artist series, and sets up the background and main characters. One of my minor quibbles with The Disappeared is that sometimes it feels like the set-up is more important than the story being told. Also, I found Flint's amazing ability to get secure information out of any computer system he touches to be unrealistic. The Disappeared does succeed in making you think about justice and culture clash - I'll be interested to see where Rusch goes next with these concepts.

Save this book for weekend comfort food. "The Disappeared" is a futuristic cop thriller with a small, believable cast, a simple, credible story and a topic you can invest as much -- or as little - thought in as you please.

The mismatched detective pair find themselves in the unenviable position of having to enforce laws they find (literally) inhumane. Rusch's vision of a humanity that utterly flunks its first interactions with alien species rings completely true. The aliens in "The Disappeared" don't just look and sound different from us, they make fundamentally different assumptions about right and wrong, fair and unfair.

This was my first book by Kristine Katherine Rusch but it definitely will not be my last. Rusch has created a world in which aliens and humans have laws and agreements between each species to accomodate the individual laws that each culture has. For instance, the Disty have the authority for vengeance killings (usually grossly spectacular to make a point to others) whereas the Wygnin take the first-born child of the criminal and imprint a new personality on that person (likely driving the individual insane if the person is not a baby). Alien laws are so complex that humans frequently violate them without meaning to; thus, the creation of disappearance agencies that assist these individuals with escaping from the aliens for a price. Unfortunately, one of the largest disappearance agencies is now under new ownership and selling all of their database. Miles Flint is a newly promoted detective who is forced to confront these laws firsthand when two space yachts arrive on the Moon, bringing two separate alien races shortly behind. Flint and his partner, Noelle DeRicci, must hunt one of the disappeared, Ekaterina Maakestad, while investigating Wygnin warrants for two children, Jasper, age 8, and Ennis, an infant. This book is the set-up for the Retrieval Artist series and describes the incidents that drive Flint to become a Retrieval Artist. A well thought-out plot makes this an enjoyable read.

"The Disappeared" works very well as a standard science fiction cop novel, but it also introduces a fascinating science fiction cultural dilemma. Namely, dealing with societies whose concepts of justice are as alien as their biology. This is something that we deal with in our own world, of course, but it reaches new levels with dealing with truly alien beings.

This is the first novel in a series, and I would imagine (or at least hope) that Rusch delves more deeply into this dilemma as the series progresses. For this introductory volume, the characters are strong enough, the situations suspenseful enough, and the conflict original enough to make it a good read.

This was a recommendation from the DL listserv, and a great one, at that. 1st in the Retrieval Artist series, a sci-fi mystery series that mostly takes place on the moon in a domed community called Armstrong. Miles Flint is a newly promoted detective, partnered with Noelle DeRicci because no one else will partner with the veteran detective. The pair are given three cases in Miles' old jurisdiction at once - all involving intergalactic justice, meaning that they are dealing with alien races and cultures that they have little experience handling. When all the cases connect to the service of a Disappearance services company, Miles uses his computer skills to delve into the history of the victims to find the connection. While Miles and Noelle realized they were over their heads, they kept digging and the tension mounted. Would they be the cause of an intergalactic war if they couldn't find the answers? This is a GREAT read. Lots of characters, but it all comes together. Next in the series is EXTREMES.

I've been trying to read more SF lately, and this filled the bill...and then some! Miles Flint is a detective working on the Moon when a space yacht is found - with 3 dead people inside. Another space yacht, piloted by a young woman, comes into the Port, calling out a Mayday as she attempts to not crash the yacht. A strange coincidence? Or do these two events share something? And what's with all the aliens showing up, demanding human kids as payment for past wrongs perpetrated by the adult humans?

**POSSIBLE SPOILER**
What first drew me in was the opening couple of pages, where we first meet that young woman; it broke my heart that she had to leave her fiancee behind...

In summary, this is a nice mix of SF and mystery.

You'll keep guessing until the very end as to what Miles will do.

One thing I really enjoy about Rusch's stories is how she presents her characters--and readers--with moral dilemmas that have no easy answer. In the Retrieval Artist series, humanity is belatedly learning that other intelligent species have strikingly different views than we do about what constitutes criminal behavior, not to mention appropriate criminal penalties. In order to avoid draconian punishments for often-innocent missteps, humans fleeing interstellar arrest warrants turn to "disappearance services", which provide new identities for a price.

As police detective Miles Flint encounters "disappeared" fugitives with blown covers, he is forced to choose between the legal requirements of his job and the demands of his conscience. Flint's response to these impossible demands is both thought-provoking and highly entertaining.

It's nice to see the Retrieval Artist books being re-issued in Kindle format at a reasonable price--once you read The Disappeared, you'll want to get the rest of the series.

This book is part police procedural and part Babylon 5. It has an enjoyable blend of cops and alien anthropology that is very inviting to readers. Ms. Rusch has created a gritty futuristic world where human interaction with aliens is fraught with dangers. Likable main characters and good pacing make it so there are few if any real lulls. I'm very much looking forward to the next book in this series.