On Jupiter’s moon Callisto, a mysterious Recovery Man kidnaps Rhonda Shindo after he terrorizes and then abandons her brilliant thirteen-year-old daughter, Talia. While authorities on Callisto search for Rhonda, her employers at the Aleyd Corporation try to gain custody of Talia. Somehow, Callisto authorities realize, she’s part of the crime—even though she was left behind.
Meanwhile, Miles Flint is having a crisis of his own. In his murdered mentor’s files lies a long-held secret—one that could change his life. His investigation of the secret leads him to the Aleyd Corporation, into the middle of the search for Rhonda Shindo—and to a case that threatens the entire legal system that enables the Earth Alliance to function�
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance, and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists –even in London� and have been published in 14 countries and 13 different languages.
Her awards range from the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award to the John W. Campbell Award. In the past year, she has been nominated for the Hugo, the Shamus, and the Anthony Award. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won a Hugo award for editing and a Hugo award for fiction.
In addition, she's written a number of nonfiction articles over the years, with her latest being the book "A Freelancer's Survival Guide".
She has also published as: (collaborations with husband ) - romances (collaborations with husband ) - mysteries - historical fiction - romances
- In this series, I like the plot more when there's a balance between character (Flint) and "problem/s" that need to be solved. The setup for Flint & world setting took several books to establish. That work paid off in books #5 & 6.
This was another good installment of the series. I didn't realize when I'd read the summary, I didn't realize that this was going to delve so deeply into Miles' personal life (okay, I didn't realize Rhonda and her daughter were connected to him at all). Once I got into the story and realized it, I really enjoyed it. Granted Miles doesn't actually get to Calisto until the last quarter and he never has a scene with Rhonda (boy was I pining for one after all the revelations) but the call back to their history was so well done that I can't really complain. Points also go to Aleyd possibly rivalling Wagner, Stuart & Xendor for most cravenly opportunistic and cynical employer. Unlike the Disty in the last book, I didn't feel I got to know the Geyonesse very well. Still, I liked the look in and could see their grievance where their progeny were concerned.
No Noelle here and yes, I missed her but again, there was so much else going on that I can't ultimately call that a flaw in the book. Definitely recommended and I'm already on to the next one. I will miss this series when I've finished it.
What if you found out that your child you thought was dead�.might not be?
And your ex-wife may have hidden this information from you?
Those two questions creates the theme in Recovery Man (Book 6 of the Retrieval Artist Series) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. For the first six books of the series, we had not learned much about Miles Flint’s personal life. We knew from the backstory in The Disappeared (Book 1 of the series) that his daughter, Emmeline, was killed and the criminal who committed the murder prosecuted. Also, that Miles and his wife, Rhonda divorces some time after that. Well, Recovery Man delves into Flint’s personal life in a surprising and profound way and takes the series in a new direction.
Flint was following-up on a case after Paloma’s (his mentor) death in Book 5 of the Series. The information he finds out is somehow connected to the supposed death of Emmeline. The Retrieval Artist investigates this connection and learns some disturbing information about his ex-wife that will alter his career and life forever.
Recovery Man is a good entry point for new readers who may want to try out the Retrieval Artist Series. Rusch does an excellent job of weaving in the backstory without bogging down the pace of the novel. Also, I feel that new readers can get a good grasp of the Retrieval Artist’s character development without having to go back and read the first five books of the series. However, I will write that once you have read Recovery Man, you will definitely want to go back and read the prior books in the series.
I thought the Paloma (Book 5) was my favorite one of the series. Recovery Man has replaced Paloma as my favorite book of the series. I highly recommend these thought-provoking science fiction thrillers and I’m looking forward to reading Duplicate Effort, the next book in the series.
When Rhonda Shindo is kidnapped, she leaves behind a teenage daughter who is suddenly confronted with unsettling truths about her mother and herself. Going by the description on the cover, the plot supposedly follows Talia Shindo's efforts to find her mother, coinciding with the investigations of Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. Sounds exciting, right? It isn't. It's also inaccurate. While we do follow both Talia and Miles throughout the narrative, very little actually happens to either of them. The action, a misnomer in this case, consists mostly of characters talking to one another and navigating cross-species bureaucracy, which is much less interesting than it sounds. The characters, while interesting and fully developed, wait in lines, argue with various officials to get access to buildings, areas or information, check into hotels and make phone calls.
To be fair, Rhonda Shindo's plotline does involve both excitement and drama, and helps move the narrative forward. However, even here the action moves painstakingly slowly, with plot point taking forever to play out. Rusch writes engagingly and skillfully, but what actually happens in the book could have been described in about half the pages she devotes to it. There is quite a bit of tell rather than show, with characters explaining what they have done, could do and are about to do, and remembering what they did in the past. Yes, it's the sixth novel in a series, but a lot of information is repeated, or could have been presented differently.
Not having read any of the previous novels in the series, I wondered if my view of it was being influenced by this, so I was surprised to see other reviews consider the book a good starting point in the series. Unfortunately, it was not for me, and will rather be an ending point.
I picked this book up on a lark, not really expecting much. The book was surprisingly good, it was a real page turner. The book is supposed to be hard boiled, but in my mind it was just a good suspense thriller.
The ending was a little flat and left several unanswered questions. I didn't realize it, but this is six of the series of seven books. I'm coming into the story towards the end. Even with that, it's very good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm going to have to go back and start at the very beginning and work my way back through to catch up.
A ver, voy a dejar caer un spoiler gordo, pero da igual porque la novela es una mierda.
No está muy mal escrita, pero en cada párrafo hay como doce "she", párrafo tras párrafo que se hace completamente farragoso de leer. Ya sé que en el inglés no es como en el español, pero es tanta la repetición que se hace completamente intolerable.
Ese no es principal problema. Ni el hecho de que, por arte de birlibirloque, la gente viaje de la Luna a Ganímedes en una mañana, y luego tarde tres días a ir de una estación espacial a otra que está al lado, estirando y encogiendo los tiempos de la narración según a la autora le venga en gana.
El principal problema es que, a falta de 50 páginas del final, "Jonny saca su pistola atómica con ziritione" y destruye al malo. O más bien la tía ya está con los Gyronesse, que la tienen en una habitación en una estación espacial abandonada... que tiene una máquina experimental capaz de leer la mente y los extraterrestres tienen intención de usarla para descubrir el secreto que ella encierra... elemento que aparece de repente, en el momento justo y fuera de la línea histórica y narrativa.
¡Vamos, hombre! ¡ATPC! Así que he cerrado el libro y lo he borrado sin terminar. De todos modos el final es más que previsible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is the sixth in the Retrieval Artist series, which I started at the beginning of the year and have been thoroughly enjoying. This instalment was no disappointment, even though there were some implausible coincidences that prompted the protagonist to go in search of information about his former family, just at the time when unexpected events were overtaking them. Anyway, I loved spending more time in this world, getting to know Miles Flint better and finding out more about his history. It was a shame Noelle DeRicci didn't appear, as I really like her as a character, but the tension of the plot in this book did make up for that absence. I'm really looking forward to reading more of these.
Another fantastic installment in the Retrieval Artist series. I love the way that Rusch puts a story together, and strings out the drama and suspense. I also love the female protagonists who are not squishy. Both Talia and Rhonda suffer at the hands of government and criminal elements, and whilst they are victims, they are strong characters who you can relate to and care about. You could even see them as role models.
This story is complex enough that you need to think about the various aspects and can make some predictions about the way it will turn out. At the same time it's not so simple or obvious that you'll be right all the time! I like that.
A woman is kidnapped in a company town on Callisto. Her terrified 13-year-old cloned daughter is abandoned, and her mother’s employer thinks they own her. A group of aggrieved aliens also claim title to the girl. Meanwhile, in Luna’s Armstrong City, Miles Flint is going through the records of the retrieval company he inherited when he finds a connection to the Callisto case. Most of the story follows the victims. But there is a sequel, Recovery Man’s Bargain, that tells the story from the point of view of the kidnapper. If that brings Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon to mind, you are not far wrong.
I really enjoy Kristine K Rusch's writing! Can't put them down. Unfortunately I am reading this series with gaps bcz my library system doesn't have them all. Still, each one stands alone, though I recommend reading them in order, I do plan to go back and read the missed ones.
With Awards in both the Mystery genre and the Sci Fi genre her writing stands out in this series with a merging of the two. Already have a hold on the next book in the Retrieval Artist series and lookin forward to reading her many other books as well.
I can’t decide between 4 and 5 stars. Recovery Man seems like a transitional novel needed to fill in a backstory of a new character while moving the series along.
Miles is actually a secondary actor in the story of his ex wife’s kidnapping, her history, and the death of their daughter. Miles� involvement in the story is investigating his dead friend’s computer files and references to his murdered daughter.
The two story threads and characters converge about 90% into the novel. The ending was wrapped up fairly quickly at that point but it’s still satisfying.
I received this book in a group with some others and think I probably would have liked it better if I had read the others first. That said, I liked the story a lot and it kept me guessing almost all the way through -- in fact it is possible that some of my guess might be true later (or earlier) in the series. Very interesting approach to asking the question what does it mean to be a person and to be a human person in a multi-species, government-by-corporation context.
While surprisingly little happens in this Retrieval Artist novel, Rusch is as readable as ever and the narrative to and fro spawns an immersive understanding of her near-Earth SF future � a potpourri of corporate frontier settlement, digital advancement and edgy alien multiculturalism.
My fourth reading still finds the story engaging. Guess I'm a sucker for sassy-though-heartbroken teenage girls, and fathers who suffer and care. Plus aliens and battles in space. Considering the USA won't submit to an earthly World Court, imagine Earth submitting to intergalactic multi-species legal systems. Entertaining, fast paced, with the main character continuing to grow and develop.
I don't know why this series doesn't get more love. It is seriously my favorite. And you can tell when I'm feeling anxious and stressed because that's when I start reading science fiction. Nothing resembling real life allowed. No vicarious stress and angst for me. On that note, you know it is doubly bad when I start REreading science fiction. 🙈
Fast-paced, familiar setting, straight-forward plot. Though it extends the overall narrative of Miles Flint, the novel reprises much information from prior installments. Lacks the sense of what living in space or on the Earth's Moon would really be like, particularly the gravitational differences.
This series has me hooked and I can't stop myself from coming back for more. Some series get stale as they progress, using similar plot lines over and over. But each book always seems new and different. As you can tell, I love it.
Entertaining like all the books (so far) in this series, but I don't love the retconning. Guess I'll have to see what KKR does with it. ¯\_�(ツ�)_�/�
Recovery Man is the sixth novel in Rusch’s science fiction mystery series following Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. The premise of the series is as follows: human governments have signed treaties with alien governments mandating that humans be tried under alien laws for crimes committed on alien planets. But some of the punishments or “crimes� are completely, well, alien to humans, so a burgeoning industry of Disappearance Services hides human offenders from alien justice systems. Miles Flint, a former police officer, is a Retrieval Artist, someone who works for the families of the Disappeared, who will try to contact them without blowing their aliases.
While you could theoretically start with Recovery Man, I wouldn’t. It’s not the best book in the series, and the plotline is weaker than some of the others. Try the first book, The Disappeared.
On a company colony on Callisto, Rhonda Shindo is kidnapped by a Recovery Man, leaving her thirteen year old daughter Talia on her own, along with a big revelation regarding her past. Meanwhile, Miles Flint is searching through the old files on his mentor Paloma’s computer when he stumbles onto information with a critical tie to his own past.
Basically, Recovery Man is an exploration of Miles’s backstory. Yes, I know, I thought we would have a handle on everything after six books, but Recovery Man does mine new ground. Partly related to this, Noelle DeRicci, probably the second most significant character in the series, actually didn’t appear here. I missed her, but I don’t see how she would have fit in anyway.
While it didn’t have any trouble getting me to keep turning the pages, Recovery Man did end up feeling a bit lacking. In retrospect, Miles didn’t actually do a whole lot in his sections. Same goes for Talia after the initial excitement of her mother’s kidnapping. Really, Rhonda’s desperate escape attempts were the majority of the action in the novel.
There were also quirks of Rusch’s writing style that annoyed me at times. It seemed like she spent too much time stating the obvious, often for the purpose of dramatic ending lines to chapters. Are all of her books like this, or am I only just now noticing it?
Regardless, I’m still willing to read more since I like the stories and characters. Unfortunately one of my favorite things about the series � the aliens � didn’t have a huge role in this installment, but I can hold out hopes for future books.
I liked this quite a bit. Interesting take on politics between humans and alien races. Strong and fascinating characters, along with a plucky teenager, who somehow manages to not feel like a stereotype.
This is the sixth entry in Rusch's "Retrieval Artist" series. I've read the other five, though not in order. In terms of accomplishment, I'd put it in the middle. One of the things I like about this series is the clash of alien and Earth cultures. This one opens with a kidnapping, which creates a reasonable amount of tension, but the novel feels underpopulated compared to the others. The Gyonnese are the featured alien culture, but they remain in the background until the end. The setting is on Callisto, which has its own laws, but it is primarily an Earth settlement. Miles Flint, the "retrieval artist," is on the sidelines much of the time, again until the end. A Callisto police officer, a lawyer representing the kidnapped woman's family, and the two kidnappers are ineffectual and not that interesting. Rusch ramps things up in the last fifty pages, however, and ties up loose ends nicely. Not the place to start this sf/mystery cross genre series, but a pleasurable enough read if you've got this far.
This is the first book of this series that I have read so I had no background of the worlds, the story, or the characters. That made some of the terminology a little difficult (recovery man vs. retrieval artist vs. tracker) and I sometimes felt like I was missing some backstory on the characters (like Miles's relationship with Paloma and why he was so angry with her in this novel) but I felt like the book also stood well on its own since I never felt lost.
I liked the integration of sci-fi elements into a drama that seems like it could happen at any spot on the human time-line. The characters were believable and I liked how even secondary characters (the lawyer and the police officer) had motivations that made sense to the character and the story. I look forward to reading other books in the series to find out the past stories of characters and to see what happens to the characters I came to know in this book.
The kidnapping of a woman on a moon of Jupiter intersects with Flint's research into his dead mentor's files. Flint finds some information about his family and investigates as he finds out things weren't really the way they seemed.
This book was much like the others in the series, but a little less exciting. Yes, we do find out more about Flint and his family, and yes, there is cross-cultural struggle, and yes, there are a few action-packed chapters. However, the overall feel of the novel wasn't quite as quick-moving and engaging as I've come to expect from the previous books. Still worth reading if you've read the others in the series, though. I was surprised that DeRicci really didn't show up at all.