Customer Reviews

Duplicate Effort: A Retrieval Artist Novel (Retrieval Artist Novels)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

_Duplicate Effort_ picks up soon after _Recovery Man_, continuing the story of Miles, his daughter Talia, and Miles' ex-employer Paloma's son. Newcomers to the series should NOT start here -- there is no "previously in" summary, although the story does fill in the major points for those who read Recovery Man and Palmoa a year or so ago.

The gist of the story follows several different characters as they grapple with an investigation into Ki Bowles murder. The characters and world are as sharply drawn as ever, but there are several unsatisfying aspects.

The blurb is inaccurate -- Talia does not actually go off on her own, at least not for very long. However, her search for her clone sisters is an important aspect of the resolution.

The audience is a bit ahead of the characters because it sees clues that that the seperate investigations don't share, but that doesn't help much in understanding a somewhat unsatisfying resolution. The motives of the responsible party are somewhat murky and revealed only at the very end of the book. More significantly, Miles, Nyquist, Romey, and Van Alen's efforts are mostly moot. Had they done nothing, DeRicci would have caught the responsible party, although with collateral damage to parties that Miles wishes to protect.

Justinian Wagner does get a long-overdue commupance, mostly as a result of stupid actions on his part. The confrontation between him, Miles, and Talia falls a bit flat after a 3 book build-up.

Glaringly, at several points the book depends on characters either delibrately not checking their links (voice mail, in effect) or being in locations where messages are delayed. This can work once or twice in a book, the repetition of it to delay progress in the parrallel investigations becomes overused.

This may also be the first book in the series with almost no alien presence, which is somewhat of a loss in a series with some interesting and alien, aliens.

The end wraps up a number of plot threads and likely could serve as an end to the series. If it continues, it will be interesting to see where the author goes with it.

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 is that Justinian ordered the killing. Yet he knows that Bowles has many enemies and starts investigating her past.

This tale leads Flint and Nyquist to many interesting findings about Bowles. Another murder is discovered and the case is expanded. Then Justinian intervenes.

This story has many twists and turns. But it is probably the last book in the series. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Rusch fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of police investigations, computer searches, and intriguing characters. If anyone has not previously read this series, the initial volume is The Disappeared.

-Arthur W. Jordin

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.

This is not a standalone series, you have to read the previous books to understand the context here. When this series started it had one of the best portrayals of aliens I had found in a long time. So it's with some sadness that I note there were no aliens at all in this book. The series has devolved into a satisfying space mystery, with all the heroes and villains being all too human and the initial exploration of the alien is gone. That is not to say I don't enjoy spending time with Miles and his assorted cronies. I like his budding relationship with his just found daughter; I like enemies from previous novels getting their comeuppance. It's just more ordinary, despite being set on the moon, than her earlier works.

It could be that she is finishing the series here, many dangling threads have been tightened, and Miles is going to radically change his career, and perhaps his adventures will end. If more books do come, I hope they have more alien culture explorations.

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.

Fans of the Retrieval Artist series should know what to expect, and Rusch delivers again. As another reviewer noted, it wouldn't be advisable to start here - nor should you want to, as the previous books are at least as enjoyable as this one. It is, in short, exactly what you should expect if you've read the previous books in the series: an excellent book.

That being said, the Kindle edition contains extra blank lines between every paragraph, which is very distracting. It's not unreadable, but it sadly kept me from getting as settled into the book as I normally would. Do yourself a favor and download the sample first, if you're buying the Kindle version, so you can see if you can live with the distraction before you purchase.

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. <SPOILER> 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.'