SOJALS rating:

Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this on the 24th December 2006.

Chase Kolpath and her employer Alex Benedict are on the archaeological trail once again. This time they are searching for evidence of an interstellar colony that was lost thousands of years before. They'll have to survive several murder attempts by mysterious enemies to find out what happened to Margolia, the unknown planet that hosted the missing colony.

The problem is that I'm sure Jack has written this book before. It is lovely writing but it is all so familiar. Even Chase - who I once thought was an intriguing character - just seems so set in her ways. We know her personality and there's unlikely to be any further development. Frankly with this book archaeology just seems so old hat.

And it wasn't even a particularly clever plot. the evidence for the lost colony was painfully weak and the reasons for the murder attempts were vacuous at best.

Sadly, not a winner.