It's pretty good! You probably don't need me to tell you that. But, for a book published in 2011, I was surprised at how old-fashioned it felt. It's a bog-standard police procedural. The cop's a drunk with a failed marriage and an obsession with a victim - how many times have we seen that played out? It's also pretty old-school in its choice of characters. There are a couple of female protagonists - but the story is never told from their perspective. Despite the limitless potential offered by off-world sex, everyone seems robustly heterosexual. Compared with something like "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" feels almost parochial.

But what elevates it is the way that everything stems from the engineering challenges faced by the inhabitants of various moons and space-stations. There's very little "quantum woo" here - just a fairly linear progression from today. It feels grimy and realistic.

Without getting too far into spoiler territory, I found the various enemies to be - again - tired tropes. Weyland-Yutani casts a long shadow, I guess.

It is enjoyable. But I'm not sure I want to go through all 8 subsequent books. There's lots of innovative sci-fi out there - but this didn't grab my attention.