A smart, explosive thriller that hits its mark.
Gerrib’s gripping story pits a murder investigation against mounting corporate corruption and a colony edging toward revolt. On Gavin Station, a mining colony spinning inside the asteroid Eros, newly arrived legal consultant Martika Clybourne finds her supposedly straightforward job complicated by a suspicious death. When another killing follows—this time involving a weapon that should not exist—the isolated community’s simmering tensions threaten to erupt.
Gerrib makes particularly effective use of the novel’s closed environment. Gavin Station is technologically impressive but socially claustrophobic, a place where workers depend on the same corporation for employment, security, transportation, and much of everyday life. Falling platinum prices and mounting debts steadily increase the pressure, allowing the station’s economic problems to become inseparable from its growing political divisions.
Martika is an engaging center for the unfolding crisis. Wry, outspoken, and increasingly troubled by what she discovers, she must navigate the uncomfortable distance between protecting her employer and recognizing abuses that cannot easily be dismissed. Jane provides the novel’s more volatile counterpoint. Her intelligence and mechanical ability make her especially memorable, while her circumstances give the mystery an emotional urgency beyond the question of guilt. Gerrib expands the investigation gradually into a broader examination of authority, justice, labor, and resistance without losing the thriller’s momentum. Multiple perspectives deepen the portrait of a community whose residents disagree about both the source of their problems and what should be done about them. The result is a taut, provocative thriller about what happens when authority loses its claim to obedience.
***
Pub date August 25, 2026
Space Wizard Science Fantasy
ISBN 978-1960247582
Price $20.95 Paperback, $4.99
