The Spare Man
Mary Robinette Kowal
Tor
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Heiress Tesla Crane had hoped for a nice, relaxing cruise to Mars aboard the luxury liner Lindgren, honeymooning with her new spouse, retired detective Shan. She could use it; a terrible accident with one of her company's prototypes left her half-crippled in pain and scarred by PTSD, something neither the nerve blockers nor her service dog, the terrier Gimlet, can entirely alleviate. But she has a handsome and brilliant and supportive husband, a first-class suite, and some of the best cocktails in the system. It should be a good time.
Then a woman is murdered - and, impossibly, her husband is a prime suspect.
Tesla just wanted to lie low and enjoy some time incognito as a happy newlywed, but when it's clear the shipboard security officer has already made up his mind, she realizes it's up to her (and Gimlet) to clear Shan's name by finding the real killer. But someone who killed once and got away with it isn't the type of person to sit around and wait to be unmasked...
REVIEW: I loved what I've read of Kowal's alternate history Lady Astronaut stories, as well as her standalone Ghost Talkers. The concept of this one, crossing the Nick and Nora Charles banter-based sleuthing story with a futuristic spaceship setting, sounded like it could've been great fun. And it should've been fun. It really should have been fun. I don't know if I was just in the wrong headspace, or if I just don't enjoy this kind of story in print, but for whatever reason almost nothing in this book worked for me, try as I did to make it work.
First off, I knew there would probably be some challenges integrating the inherently different elements here. The Nick and Nora model relies on a certain retro vibe, sipping cocktails and trading glib banter with certain implied social and gender roles. The setting, though, is a spaceship, in a future where, even if class equality is as nonexistent as it is today, gender roles have broadened and changed radically; indeed, the story goes out of its way to point out how the ship security officer is considered practically a relic of the Neolithic for throwing around attitudes about gender and disabilities that should've died in the 1980's. With their old-school banter and gestures and cocktail habits, Tesla and Shan just plain feel out of place, even with the Lindgren inexplicably feeling like a luxury cruise ship from yesteryear, down to the live stage magician doing the same tired tricks that were old hat when the original Nick and Nora Charles were about. This disconnect isn't helped by the utter lack of viable chemistry between Tesla and Shan; their banter often feels forced and ill-timed, their constant newlywed nuzzling and pawing at each other always seeming to happen right when they really should be doing something else (as in one time, when they have a stranger waiting for them in the other room, they darned near strip down and go at it on the bed when they really should be more focused on how this person can help them investigate and, say, clear Shan's name of the murders so they can make out without a third party waiting on them...). Of course, I'm not entirely sure how close the married couple really is; Shan claims to be a retired detective, yet hasn't told his own wife why he retired - and this is a man she keeps claiming can read her feelings and moods like a book, and vice versa. Isn't this the kind of thing husbands and wives should tell each other in a solid relationship - even before vows are exchanged and they're on their honeymoon? Naturally, Shan does a lot of investigating for a "retired" detective, but progress for both him and Tesla is uneven, stumbling over a long list of crewmembers and suspects whose names and connections became a blur (and I'm used to reading epic fantasy doorstoppers, so juggling names shouldn't be an issue, but I was just so distracted by how nothing seemed to click together here that I just could not do it). Gimlet weasels her way into almost every possible scene, in the reader's face almost as much as a real attention-loving little pooch who doesn't always need to be there (her "service dog" services fall by the wayside as she becomes more useful as a distraction). I like dogs, don't get me wrong, but I don't always want one underfoot when I'm trying to keep track of the plot. Things happen, Tesla experiences pain and gets re-traumatized, Shan gets beat up by shipboard security during "interrogation" (did I mention that he has a bad broken rib and black eye and is in serious pain, as is she, when they're nearly tearing each other's clothes off in that earlier "make the stranger wait because hormones" scene? I know newlyweds can be a little eager, but as a reader I could only wince, not finding acute pain particularly arousing.), the official investigator is so clearly biased and incapable of actually looking at evidence that it went beyond funny to tooth-grinding in the space of a couple chapters (is he on the take? Nope, just incompetent, because you can't have a competent investigator around if "amateur" sleuths are going to solve things), subplots complicate things unnecessarily, and yet more cocktails are mixed and banter traded before the final unmasking of the true culprit and the book finally trudges over the finish line.
I wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy some light banter with a nice little mystery. I really, really did. And there were moments that almost rose to my expectations. But at every turn I kept running nose-first into parts that didn't fit and moments that didn't work and characters who never came alive beyond the trope/stereotype that inspired them. I pushed myself to the halfway point hoping it would finally click, then pushed myself to the end just to get it out of the way. Any book that I'm making myself read just to get it out of the way suffers a ratings hit, unfortunately.
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