Malka Older

While I find this novella to be almost as good as the first book in what appears to be an open-ended series, the emphasis is on the almost, as Inspector Mossa has another missing person case to investigate, and Scholar Pleiti is along for the ride. Again, for me, the world that Older is building is the real character for here, and I do have to wonder when noticeable diminishing returns are going to set in; hopefully Older is able to keep things fresh for awhile.

For me, it needed a bit more world building at the front-end (a better use of Prologue, if one needs one at all). For a novella, I spent too much time trying to "see" the environment, scaffolding the information around the mystery, which drew me out of the story. The characters, though, are very interesting and I would be interested in reading more of their adventures.

I enjoyed the idea of a Watson/Holmes-like pair of women on a remote moon investigating a murder in a university setting.