Reading Journal: The Vacuum of Space (Space Janitor #1) by Julia Huni

4 of 5 stars

fiction, humor, mystery-suspense, science-fiction, series

 

I think this almost qualifies as a cozy mystery, except that there are dead bodies, it's not always cozy, and it's also science fiction. The story takes place on a space station, SK2, which is basically an entire enclosed community, where people live and work long-term, if not their entire lives, and which has obvious socio-economic strata. Kudos to the author for concise world-building, and just enough detail in some strange circumstances that I could picture what was happening, without feeling buried in descriptions. The narrative moves along nicely, with something new always going on, and some twists in the plot that jolted me a little but did not stop the flow, and increased my involvement and enjoyment of the story.

 

Triana Moore is a "space janitor" - she's a worker in a section of the space station from which the cleaning bots are controlled, and consequently has camera views of many parts of the station. So it's not surprising that if a vacuum bot comes across a dead body, Triana or one of her coworkers is likely to see and report it. But some odd things happen after she reports a body, and the next day she can't even remember what happened. Eventually she teams up with a lone security officer named Ty O'Neill (for short - he has a long name), and they're off on a risky investigation that takes them to all parts of the station, and includes Triana getting to eat some higher quality foods that she doesn't ordinarily get a chance to indulge in on her meager pay. I really liked the bits about the food. Highly recommended.