Search and Recovery
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
WMG Publishing
trade paper, 248 p., $18.99
ebook $5.99

I’ve been reading and reviewing Kris Rusch’s Anniversary Day Saga, with reviews alternating between here and Amazing Stories. Search and Recovery is the fourth volume in the series, so as an even numbered entry, it gets reviewed here.

The previous installment, A Murder of Clones (click here for review), introduced a new set of characters in a different part of the Earth Alliance who are very much a part of the story. Search and Recovery goes back to the days immediately after the Anniversary Day attacks and focuses on two characters, although there are some others who will be familiar if you’ve been keeping up with the story.

The first is Berhane Magalhaes, who was introduced briefly in the previous volume. The second is the crime lord Luc Deshin, who we know will form a partnership with Miles Flint in the coming weeks.

Both of the characters are deeply affected by the bombings. Berhane lost her mother in the first attack four years ago, and now her fiance has dumped her just before the Anniversary Day attacks. In dealing with her pain and grief, she

Luc Deshin has been trying to distance himself from his criminal past, but since the bombings, he knows that his wife and son are at risk as long as those behind the bombings are free. So he renews old relationships. What he finds is highly disturbing and will, as we know from Blowback, drive him to form an alliance with Miles Flint.

That’s all I’m going to say about Search and Recovery here. The book is the shortest in the series so far. It’s tempting to describe it as filler, as there’s not as much action as there was in the earlier installments. I think, though, that such an assessment would be unfair. The author is laying the groundwork for what’s to come, and that takes time and patience to do right. There are some seeds of future developments sown, not just in the investigation, but also in the lives of the characters.

Rusch talks in her introduction about her decision to publish the series one book a month for the first six months of the year. I think that’s an excellent strategy, and I would like to thank her because, as she says, it allows fans of the series to binge on it without having to remember details over long periods of time as would be the case in traditional publishing.

By not going through a traditional publisher, Rusch is able to tell the story she wants to tell in the way she wants to tell it. I can think that the story will be stronger for it. And make no mistake, The Anniversary Day Saga is an extremely strong story, one of the best I’ve read in a while. It may very well turn out to be Ms. Rusch’s masterwork.

I’d also like to thank WMG Publishing for the review copy of Search and Recovery as well as the review copies of the other books in the series. I’ll be starting The Peyti Crisis later in the week.