Elizabeth Bonesteel: The Cold Between
Nov. 14th, 2018 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaElizabeth Bonesteel’s The Cold Between is a murder mystery in space, wrapped up in political conflicts, covert assignments, questions about a 20-year-old tragedy involving the destruction of a ship near a wormhole, and a dash of romance.
The novel opens with an emergency evacuation of a space ship, followed by the destruction of all hands. Years later, the wormhole believed responsible for the event is still off-limits, though scientific curiosity abounds about the exact fate of the Phoenix.
Not far from the region of space where the Phoenix was destroyed, a Central Corps space ship, the Galileo, commanded by Greg Foster, the son of one of the Phoenix’ officers, takes shore leave on the planet Volhynia. It’s not Galileo’s ordinary run, but they’ve been ordered to pick up some of the crew from the Demeter, commanded by Captain McBride, who reported that his ship, while near the wormhole, was attacked by a ship from a previously unaggressive confederation of space traders, the PSI.
The Galileo’s chief engineer, Elena Shaw, isn’t looking for romance. She’s just been through a difficult breakup with her lover, Danny Lancaster, and she’s still confused and hurting. But the retired PSI officer in the bar she’s ended up at calling himself Trey is sensitive, intelligent, and attractive. She takes him up on his invitation, and spends the night with him.
When she returns to the Galileo in the morning, she discovers that her ex-lover has been murdered and her companion for the evening has been arrested for the crime. While she is able to get him freed by providing an alibi, it’s suspect because of her former relationship with the victim.
Despite the initial opposition of her captain, a former friend who seems to have deserted her just as Danny did, Elena sets out to discover the truth behind Danny’s death, with Trey - infamous pirate captain Treiko Tsvetomir Zajec - assisting her to clear his own name.
As trust develops between them and they begin to share background information during their investigation, everything seems to point to a connection between Danny, the destruction of the Phoenix, and a shadowy operation to destabilise relations between the Corps and PSI.
It’s a decent, action-filled adventure with lots of mysteries to sort out. That said, it’s also a bit of a Peyton Place in space, with a great many plot points turning on who’s been involved with who, or wanted to be, to the point where I really doubted the professionalism of the Central Corps, and started thinking a zero fraternisation policy might be a good thing among shipmates. It always annoys me when the forward progress of a novel depends on friends and lovers not being truthful with each other, and there’s a bit too much of that here for my taste, too. Though the main relationship, between Elena and Trey, is refreshing in its honesty - and doomed by it, as well.
I also could have used just a bit more information about the society all this is taking place in. Is it a federation of planets? Or are most planets independent, and the obviously military Central Corps a primarily Earth-based organisation that negotiates with other planets for trade and such. What roe do the PSI play? And what about the occasionally mentioned Syndicates - where do they fit in? I didn’t understand the relationships and power dynamics between organisations and planets, and that made the politics within the story very ... unanchored. What was at stake in the various plots and conspiracies Elena and Trey kept stumbling upon?
All in all, I enjoyed it in a modest way, but I won’t be dashing out to buy the next in the series.
The novel opens with an emergency evacuation of a space ship, followed by the destruction of all hands. Years later, the wormhole believed responsible for the event is still off-limits, though scientific curiosity abounds about the exact fate of the Phoenix.
Not far from the region of space where the Phoenix was destroyed, a Central Corps space ship, the Galileo, commanded by Greg Foster, the son of one of the Phoenix’ officers, takes shore leave on the planet Volhynia. It’s not Galileo’s ordinary run, but they’ve been ordered to pick up some of the crew from the Demeter, commanded by Captain McBride, who reported that his ship, while near the wormhole, was attacked by a ship from a previously unaggressive confederation of space traders, the PSI.
The Galileo’s chief engineer, Elena Shaw, isn’t looking for romance. She’s just been through a difficult breakup with her lover, Danny Lancaster, and she’s still confused and hurting. But the retired PSI officer in the bar she’s ended up at calling himself Trey is sensitive, intelligent, and attractive. She takes him up on his invitation, and spends the night with him.
When she returns to the Galileo in the morning, she discovers that her ex-lover has been murdered and her companion for the evening has been arrested for the crime. While she is able to get him freed by providing an alibi, it’s suspect because of her former relationship with the victim.
Despite the initial opposition of her captain, a former friend who seems to have deserted her just as Danny did, Elena sets out to discover the truth behind Danny’s death, with Trey - infamous pirate captain Treiko Tsvetomir Zajec - assisting her to clear his own name.
As trust develops between them and they begin to share background information during their investigation, everything seems to point to a connection between Danny, the destruction of the Phoenix, and a shadowy operation to destabilise relations between the Corps and PSI.
It’s a decent, action-filled adventure with lots of mysteries to sort out. That said, it’s also a bit of a Peyton Place in space, with a great many plot points turning on who’s been involved with who, or wanted to be, to the point where I really doubted the professionalism of the Central Corps, and started thinking a zero fraternisation policy might be a good thing among shipmates. It always annoys me when the forward progress of a novel depends on friends and lovers not being truthful with each other, and there’s a bit too much of that here for my taste, too. Though the main relationship, between Elena and Trey, is refreshing in its honesty - and doomed by it, as well.
I also could have used just a bit more information about the society all this is taking place in. Is it a federation of planets? Or are most planets independent, and the obviously military Central Corps a primarily Earth-based organisation that negotiates with other planets for trade and such. What roe do the PSI play? And what about the occasionally mentioned Syndicates - where do they fit in? I didn’t understand the relationships and power dynamics between organisations and planets, and that made the politics within the story very ... unanchored. What was at stake in the various plots and conspiracies Elena and Trey kept stumbling upon?
All in all, I enjoyed it in a modest way, but I won’t be dashing out to buy the next in the series.