Halcyon Years – Alastair Reynolds
Much as he feels ill-equipped to take it on, private investigator Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin is not in a position to turn down work after the costly debacle of his current case, though the inclusion of a new car in addition to expenses and fees goes a long way towards persuading him to look into the deaths of two prominent individuals, Juliana DelRosso and Randall Urry the youngest children of the two wealthy families whose power, influence and business interests dominate the politics, industry and gossip pages of Halcyon.
The police satisfied that both were tragic albeit unusual accidents, five weeks apart and unconnected to each other or the rivalry between the dynasties, Ruby Blue is the mysterious woman who has asked Gagarin to look deeper, his first call the doctor who treated Ms DelRosso following her exposure to radiation, the physician himself dying in an accident only minutes after the unproductive interview is terminated, one suspicious coincidence too many in an enclosed society such as the generation ship Halcyon.
Transported to a science fiction setting while retaining all the hallmarks of the detective genre it emulates with deception, misdeeds, grudges, false alibis and potentially duplicitous hot dames who are not what they appear to be, Gagarin’s experience of the Halcyon Years sees the preserved body of the pioneering Cosmonaut revived hundreds of years after his death in a familiar world of printed newspapers and film cameras in a fifty-six kilometre rotating cylinder now only a few decades from Vanderdecken’s Star.
Gagarin approaching his work with the blunt Soviet directness of a man accustomed to getting answers in a society where all are ostensibly equal and finding that there are those who would prefer some questions are not asked, it is a crossover Alastair Reynolds explored previously in the twisted gutters running with blood and dirt in Century Rain, and within that framework it is no surprise that discrepancies and suspects pile up as swiftly as the bodies and the anonymous threats directed towards Gagarin should he not discontinue his investigation.
Every society has rules and the two classes who break them, the desperate and needy who are then regarded as criminals, and those who regard themselves as above the law, the justification the responsibility they bear of maintaining the status quo with them at the top, and unlike the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies where tangential evidence slowly accretes Halcyon Years is as obvious and immediate as a car crash, the pieces of the puzzle scattered on the ground before Gagarin is involved but the picture they form becoming stranger the closer he looks.
A fractal of lies and complications, not least of which is an idea Reynolds explored in Chasm City, the old Dick move of “am I really who I think I am,” the novel also follows in the wake of Pushing Ice but develops its own hybrid identity, what might be a clash of incompatible styles careening forward with energy as it jumps from hard-boiled noir to a caper of infiltration, sabotage and unexpected exfiltration, the former Cosmonaut forced to explore a frontier beyond any known to find answers he won’t like beyond the virtue of uncovering a hidden truth.
Halcyon Years is available now from Gollancz
