A mission to explore an uninhabited planet in another solar system excites Jose Carriles as he gets to pilot the vessel Mosaic, which takes the explorers to Esparar. Corin Timony, a former spy on the lunar colony New Destiny, receives a coded message from Jose saying the ship is in distress and needs immediate aid. Seconds after she receives the message, another one appears, saying to disregard the previous one and everything is okay. When Corin questions what happened, she finds herself in danger and surrounded by people wanting her to stay quiet. Jose learns the message was ignored, and as he works to figure out what is really happening onboard the Mosaic, he puts himself and the crew’s lives at risk. The story bounces back and forth between Jose and Corin, and the novel excels at slowly building the paranoia, forcing the reader to turn the pages faster to figure out what is going on. And the payoff is glorious. As a fan of both Rob Hart and Alex Segura, I was glad to find that their writing styles blend well together, and this mix of Star Trek themes and a story like Robert Ludlum and Andy Weir had a love child is a blast. Seek out this Dark Space.
