A space pilot is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy in Hendrix’s SF novel, one in a series.

Alejandro Detweiler arrives at the underground Base One Spaceport ready to transfer to the Academy as a cadet Guardsman. Within two years, he’s piloting spacecraft and accepting covert investigative sorties that bring him back to the hazardous world of the Saturn System he once called home. His current mission is to investigate anomalies in shipments on behalf of the Wright family, but his assignment soon expands into a potential murder case: Sefu Perry ostensibly died in a collapsed mine shaft on Earth, but shady figures seem ready to implicate the Wright family in the death. Al meets with Abrianna Wright to discuss the case’s possible links to the trade of semi-legal transactinides, and the two agree to work together. (“I took her offered hand. ‘Partners to the end.’”) Despite being told to drop the case, Al continues to investigate—partly in order to spend more time with Abrianna. Things take a dangerous turn when a meeting with a group of miners ends with Abrianna taking a blow to the face, and Al and his friends end up suspected of a murder in the same area. Hendrix’s novel is a fast-paced, dialogue-heavy whodunit with a compelling protagonist torn between his faith in those around him and the many layers of secrecy that risk pulling him under. The instigating mystery of the death of a miner on Earth provides a strong opening hook, and the reader is soon immersed in the well-drawn extraterrestrial setting. The author succeeds in establishing strong stakes and introduces an engaging core cast of characters, though more could be done to add depth to the depiction of Abrianna, making her into something other than a pro forma love interest. As a stand-alone, the narrative doesn’t fully satisfy; still, Hendrix’s novel effectively develops a world for sequels to build upon.

A compelling space yarn that suffers from the threads it leaves dangling.

A young space crewman is tasked with solving a murder in Hendrix’s debut SF mystery, the first in a series.

Alejandro Detweiler is not meant for Earth. Like all Islanders—humans born and bred on the moons of Saturn—his purpose in life is to help sustain the planetary system’s extensive transactinide mining industry. Not content to spend his existence working on his family’s vegetable farm on the moon Dione, he joined the Aerospace Guard hoping for adventure. Now, he’s an engineer on the utility ship Custis, the most junior of the 12-man crew, toiling to keep the engines running as the craft cruises between moons. On his first flight, the Custis is diverted to the moon Janus, also known as the Prospector’s World. Dismissed by one of Al’s crewmates as “the System’s fastest route to bankruptcy,” Janus is a colony with 50 permanent occupants hoping to strike it rich. (“The runaways and castaways from every civilized place in the System…They’re at each other’s throats whenever they’re not digging for the next big TA strike, but they’d scream like banshees if you tried to force them off that rock.”) There’s been an accidental death: the local Justice, a government official appointed to oversee the colony. The death is suspicious enough for the Custis to take the body back to the spaceport, but its captain instructs Chief of the Ship Lionel Collins to remain behind and carry out the investigation, and Al to remain with him to serve as his eyes and ears. Not long after the ship leaves, Collins is attacked and incapacitated, leaving Al the lone guardsman left to solve the crime. To do so will require delving into the professional grudges and personal animosities of the local populace, which includes the hot-headed “constable,” a litigious prospector, and an assembly of back-stabbing minor officials. Al will have to be careful, since whoever took out Collins is surely planning to take out his assistant as well.

The author makes the most of his Saturnian setting, periodically reminding the reader of Janus’ crowded sky. “In the east, Epimetheus, Janus’s orbital twin, dominated the sky,” marvels Al. “Seemingly as large as my outstretched fist, it floated above the horizon, the brighter half lit by Saturn’s reflected glow, the dark remainder barely visible under the diminished light from the ring.” Eighteen-year-old Al makes for an unlikely detective; his ambition in joining up with the Aerospace Guards has nothing to do with law enforcement, and his attempts to navigate this strange community of characters—all memorably rendered by Hendrix—make for an intriguing fish-out-of-water tale. There’s great pleasure to be found in the procedural plot, in which the reader’s understanding of the world and the crime unfold at roughly the same pace. The story is largely about small-town claustrophobia, with themes of jealousy and resentment that would not be out of place in a yarn about an Old West boomtown or a quaint English village. The reader will hope further mysteries involving the young guardsman are in the works—after all, Saturn has some 270 other moons left to explore.

An immersive and entertaining mystery set on a moon of Saturn.

In this SF mystery, a valuable mining company ship, missing in Saturn’s rings for more than a decade, attracts the attention of an amateur sleuth when one of the craft’s escape pods is recovered with a freshly slain corpse inside.

In Hendrix’s second installment of a series, Alejandro “Al” Detweiler is the proverbial farm boy (the family farm is on the moon) who left for the more adventuresome opportunities in Saturn’s wide-open environment. A culture has risen there via enterprising (and corruptible) humans, mining the precious substance “transactinide.” Though an “Aerospace Guard” on search-and-rescue assignments, Al tends to be present when criminal mischief occurs and he has something of a reputation as a detective. Such is the case with a clue involving a 12-year-old mystery, the enigma of the Deveraux. This was an elite corporate vessel, supposedly carrying a fortune in contraband, that suffered inexplicable guidance malfunction and plunged into the chaos of Saturn’s primary ring and disappeared. Now, a fresh space shipwreck, the Anderson, is found with half of the crew missing—and an escape pod from the Deveraux floating in space nearby. Inside the pod is an Anderson crewman—stabbed to death. Was the Anderson on an unauthorized treasure hunt for the Deveraux and its legendary bonanza? Appointed to assist the investigation, Al probes decade-old secrets, imposters, smugglers, and scoundrels. The hero narrates in a fairly dispassionate style—neo-gumshoe hardboiled stuff is only in trace-element doses (“The System Police had done more than remove everything not bolted down. Forensic technicians had examined this room since I was last here, going through with scraper, lens, and brush”). The setting is one where “gravity reigned throughout the Saturn System, holding all to its will. In some places its touch was light, in others its grip as harsh as frozen stone.” Yet the prose eschews heavy astrophysics jargon. Readers comfortable with crime fiction who have a military/naval/JAG background might feel at home here, more so than typical SF fans. What could dampen their jets, though, is an ambiguous ending (more of a howdunit than a whodunit overall), with loose ends, some nefarious characters offstage, and dark repercussions for Al down the line. Future installments of this smart, engaging, genre-crossing series are planned.

A clever, intricate, and low-key SF thriller about a space treasure hunt gone bad.