SNAPSHOT
From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board … (synopsis courtesy Gizmodo)
By any estimation, my To be Read pile is out of control, multitudinous and full of more books than the average library.
While that means I often entertain the idea of not buying new books for a while and reading only those I’ve got – cue endless manic laughter and a general state of hilarious scepticism that this will ever happen – the truth is I crave new books, and the wondrously alluring stories they contain especially from authors I love like Mur Lafferty.
Responsible for brilliantly entertaining reads The Shambling Guide to New York and Ghost Train to New Orleans, which I’ve read and Six Wakes, which I somehow missed (that will rectified shortly), Lafferty is an out-of-the-box imaginative writer with a gift for making the most out-there of premises feel accessible and real.
Hence, I can’t wait for her upcoming book, Station Eternity, due this October, which features a protagonist who, as Gizmodo notes, “always seems to find herself in proximity to murders she must then solve… even after she tries to leave the crime-solving life behind by relocating to outer space”.
Sounds a little like Murder, She Wrote in space which suits me down to the ground … and right up into orbit.
Now to wait for October to roll around … perhaps I could fill in the time by attacking the TBR pile? After all, come later this year, there’s guaranteed to be at least one more book on it.