The Cold Between (Elizabeth Bonesteel)

The Cold Between
A Central Corps novel, Book 1
Elizabeth Bonesteel
Harper Voyager
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: In humanity's expansion through the stars, the ships of the Central Corps often mean the difference between life and death, delivering needed supplies, terraforming equipment, and - when applicable - peacekeeping forces to colony worlds. They maintain an uneasy truce with the vessels of the PSI - a spacegoing organization opposed to the methodology of the Corps, sometimes considered pirates, but not generally violent - and keep a wary eye on the underground syndicates, but overall Corps runs are fairly routine. When a crewman of the ship Galileo is murdered during shore leave on Volhynia, that routine is blown to smithereens.
Central Corps commander Elena Shaw went to the planetside bar with vague hopes of forgetting a recent breakup. When she runs into a former PSI officer, Trey, she finds a spark of connection like she hasn't felt in too long... but when a Corps crewman (and Elena's ex) Danny is found murdered the next morning and the local law tries to scapegoat Trey, Elena finds herself drawn deep into a conspiracy that reaches far past the atmosphere of Volhynia, all the way to the highest ranks of the Corps, encompassing the mysterious destruction of a Corps ship twenty-five years ago.

REVIEW: This looked like a fast-paced science fiction adventure with action, danger, mystery, and some romance, and it delivered in full. From the start, it builds solid-feeling characters in a world complex enough to feel real and lived-in beyond the borders of the story, yet not too intricate to understand. Elena starts out in a bad place, navigating both the fallout of a rough breakup and the recent souring of a long-term friendship she'd come to rely on, but she's never so shallow that her love life is her sole defining characteristic, and neither is anyone else; they all have different sides and different strengths and weaknesses that come through, of which their romances (or lack thereof) are only one aspect. After her night with Trey, a suitably steamy interlude, the discovery of Danny's body kicks the tale into high gear, drawing in more crewpeople and locals as the scope of the crime expands. Loyalties are tested to the utmost as duty and justice pull in different directions, even as the clues point to something much bigger, deeper, and more sinister than the murder of one Corps member and the framing of one former PSI man. The plot maintains a decent pace throughout, picking up to a solid finale that doesn't unfold quite how one would expect, but is reasonably satisfying, leaving enough threads for future installments. In looking back over it, I couldn't find any flaws worth noting, and I was invested enough that I had to finish off the audiobook on a weekend instead of waiting for my next workday, which is not all that common. Therefore, it gets kicked to the top of the ratings, and I'll be keeping an eye out for the next novel.

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