Octavia Gone

A slow-to-develop plot and a dated vision of the far future undermine McDevitt’s disappointing eighth novel featuring antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and pilot Chase Kolpath (after 2014’s Coming Home), set several thousand years in the future. Alex’s archaeologist uncle, Gabe, has returned home after escaping a time warp. Gabe’s disappointed to learn that, in his absence, Chase had returned a trophy with unusual markings to Angela Harding. Angela had obtained it from her brother, Rick, who’d been on a space station, the Octavia, that was studying a black hole but then mysteriously vanished. The reason for the Octavia’s disappearance remains a mystery, but Gabe, Alex, and Chase are determined to solve it by tracking down the trophy and investigating the major theories: that a spurned suitor of one of the crew somehow managed to blow up the Octavia, or that aliens were involved. The story doesn’t really get going until Gabe and Chase venture off-planet in search of clues, and McDevitt underdevelops his central concept. Even series fans will find this one challenging to get through. (May)