#45 Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty

 

Chaos Terminal is a great title to explain what happens in this story.  Mallory is tasked by Mrs. Brown to watch over the station while she leaves for a short but necessary trip to learn more about being linked to the station.  Mallory gets sick right before a shuttle from Earth is to arrive with the new ambassador.  What she doesn’t expect when she joins everyone at the arrival reception directly from a fevered coma in sickbay is to see her high school friend and her friend’s twin brother that she had a crush on.   The other big surprise is the law enforcement office who was convinced that Mallory was behind all the murders that happened around her on Earth.   When one of the new arrivals falls out of closet dead from a stab wound everyone is a suspect but the problem is Mallory’s talent to put the pieces together isn’t working since her fever.  No spoilers on why that happens but it does allow for the murder case to drag on a bit.  The rock like alien Tina is having issues as well and this is a large secondary plot to the storyline.  Overall, this is a great story and I hope to see more in this setting.

 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss