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Kristine Kathryn Rusch

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The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel (Retrieval Artist Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 495 ratings

Book 1 of 19: Retrieval Artist Series

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Winner of the Endeavor Award

“…one of the top science fiction sagas in recent years.”—Midwest Book Reviews

Whose rules does Detective Miles Flint live by?

Humans and aliens have formed a loose government called the Earth Alliance, with treaties that guarantee humans are subject to alien laws when on alien soil. But alien laws often seem senseless, and minor violations draw outrageous punishments—from death to the loss of a first-born child.

Miles Flint grapples with three cases that have collided: a stolen space-yacht filled with dead bodies, two kidnapped human children, and a human woman on the run to avoid alien prosecution, trying to become one of the Disappeared. Flint must enforce the law—giving the children to aliens, solving the murders, and arresting the woman for running from the legal system. But how can he enforce laws that are unjust? How can he sacrifice innocents to a system he’s not sure he believes in? How can Miles Flint do the right thing in a universe where the right thing is very, very wrong?

This is Flint's first adventure in the 15-book series, the story that turns him from a police detective in the Armstrong Dome on the Moon into a Retrieval Artist.

“Part CSI, part Blade Runner, and part hard-boiled gumshoe, [Retrieval Artist] Miles Flint would be as at home on a foggy San Francisco street in the 1940s as he is in the domed lunar colony of Armstrong City.”—The Edge Boston

"Rusch has created an entertaining blend of mystery and sf, a solid police drama that asks hard questions about what justice between cultures, and even species, really is."—Booklist

"It feels like a popular TV series crossed with a Spielberg film-engaging."—Locus

"The Disappeared is a very readable, very thought-provoking novel that lives up to every expectation we have of Rusch and her considerable talents. Buy and enjoy."—Analog

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Rusch] especially excels in tales of the collision between humor and alien cultures. The Disappeared is a fine example of her skill."

Hugo And World Fantasy Award-Winning Author The acclaimed science fiction-police series that goes where "few authors have thoroughly explored."

Praise for The Disappeared: "An entertaining blend of mystery and SF."

"Achieves a higher purpose: to make us look at the world around us with a new under-standing."

"A very thought-provoking novel that lives up to every expectation we have of Rusch and her considerable talent. Buy and enjoy."

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Jay Snyder is a voice actor, voice director, and script adapter. He is best known as the voice of Yugi Muto from the Japanese manga television series, "Yu-Gi-Oh!" A native of California, he studied acting at Julliard School in New York City.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004MME48G
Publisher ‏ : ‎ WMG Publishing, Inc. (February 6, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 6, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1743 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #488,676 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,538 in Space Exploration Science Fiction eBooks
- #3,109 in First Contact Science Fiction (Books)
- #3,495 in First Contact Science Fiction eBooks

Customer Reviews:
4.3 495 ratings

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Kristine Kathryn Rusch

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New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award.

She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson.

She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith.

To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, fictionriver.com, pulphousemagazine.com).

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4.3 out of 5

495 global ratings

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Kindle Customer

Well done

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2024

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Engaging and captivating science fiction novel with an intriguing plot and engaging characters. The plot builds tension to a very satisfying conclusion.

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Side Quest Publications

Interesting police drama, with a conflict between what is legal and what is moral. A read so nice I bought it twice!

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2015

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In the interest of full disclosure: I discovered this book via Storybundle. That is all.

An entertaining blend of science fiction, mystery, and police drama about people on the run from the law, and the police who have to decide between upholding that law and their own moral judgement.

Before I begin this review, let me point that I do have a certain, hmm… prior bias, merely to provide my readers an opportunity to take that bias into account.
While I do enjoy the occasional science fiction novel, I tend to prefer fantasy. Also, the element of crime and mystery present in The Disappeared puts its genre so far outside of my usual reading material that, had I not encountered it via one of Storybundle’s story… er, bundles, I might never have heard of it, and I definitely would never have read it.
And that oversight on my part does the book a serious injustice. Having read this book, I bought an Amazon copy as well (separate from the version in my personal documents), and I eagerly look forward to continuing the series.

Enough of that; on to the review!

The Earth Alliance has joined together many alien cultures, many strange customs. Among these are the customs of law.

The Disty will kill you if you have ever wronged them, mutilate your body and put it on display as a warning to others. They will do the same to anyone caught trying to help you.

The Rev will send you to a penal colony to work until they are satisfied with your repentance. Humans rarely survive in these places.

The Wygnin, the race that even lawyers fear to fight, the race that nobody wants to cross… the Wygnin will take your children and transform them into their own kind.

And humans are required by law to allow these cultures their own forms of justice.

Miles Flint is a detective in the Armstrong Dome on the moon. He has lived with this type of society, these types of laws, most of his life, but has never truly had to deal with the consequences of those laws before now.
Never, that is, until he encounters the victims of each race in a matter of days, one right after another.

The Disappeared is not your typical mystery novel. “Whodunnit” is clear from the start… with the possible exception of the Disty killing, and that only because the detectives must, as a matter of procedure, consider the possibility of an imitator.
The mysteries, instead, are: Why did they do it; what did the victims, or the victims’ parents in the case of the Wygnin, do that justified these actions? Do the aliens have the proper warrants; is it truly legal to allow them their forms of justice… or to continue blocking them?
And, since every victim was found to have employed a Disappearance service–an industry that is technically legal to exist but not legal to use–to change their identities for exactly this sort of reason, how did their pursuers track them down?

And quite possibly the biggest mystery of all: how will Flint or or partner Noelle DeRicci reconcile the laws they are required to uphold with their moral objections?

The first mystery, that of “why” is revealed, in every case, little by little throughout the entire novel.
The ability to uncover that information sometimes requires illegal activity on Flint’s part, but his part in learning the truth is generally acceptable in the face of seeking justice of any sort.
The answer to that mystery, however, shows just how different these aliens are than humans, as they often take what we might see as drastic forms of justice over apparently insignificant crimes.

The bulk of Flint’s and DeRicci’s jobs is to work on the second mystery: do these aliens truly have the right to seek their brand of justice?
Each group of aliens is required to provide warrants, to prove that their actions are legal, that this particular human is legitimate quarry. The humans, meanwhile, must do what they can to prove the warrants are not valid, to prevent an innocent from suffering over a mistake.

The third mystery, that of how the aliens track people down, becomes something of a personal project for Flint after he notices some rather disturbing similarities among the victims.
The answer to this mystery takes him most of the novel to find, and what he learns is the final step in questioning the very laws he is required to protect.

And the final mystery, the legal concerns versus the moral ones.
Nobody wants to simply give up a person to these alien forms of justice, no matter what crime might have been committed. But when it becomes clear that the aliens’ warrants are valid, the humans must make a choice between the morally objectionable or the illegal.
Noelle DeRicci has given people up to the alien justice before, and it becomes increasingly evident that she will do so again, no matter how little she approves. She is willing to do what she can to protect herself and Flint from her superiors’ rage, but she will not take that same chance with the aliens.
Flint, on the other hand, spends a good share of the novel trying to figure out how to outwit the aliens, the Wygnin in particular. He struggles in vain to separate his profession from his heart, and is determined to find a way to protect one of the Wygnin’s quarry, an infant that reminds him far too much of his own long-lost daughter. The mystery here becomes less about how far he will go to protect that child, but more about whether he can do so without making himself a target.

The novel did have a few problems–typos and spelling errors, mostly–but these were insignificant, barely noticeable upon reading the story and not interfering in the slightest with my ability to understand what was happening.
Those errors were, ultimately, forgettable; I know they were there, but it would take another read-through to look for them simply to remember what they were.

The plot was engrossing, a little outside of my usual reading material, but it certainly left me wanting more. And isn’t that, after all, what any good book should do? :)

There was only one detail that I found disappointing, and I think that detail says a lot more about me than it does about the book.
See, when I read a book like this, full of exotic creatures and unfathomable customs, I start to expect to see it everywhere. So I fully expected to learn that Flint’s daughter Emmeline had been killed by something just as exotic as the cases he was taking on.
I was definitely surprised, and yes, a little disappointed, to learn that her death had a completely mundane cause. But I think, even more than my disappointment at the plot point this represented, was my disappointment at the society, at the too-believable notion that we can travel the stars and still face impatient daycare providers and shaken baby syndrome.

6 people found this helpful

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Headly

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2023

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This was my first encounter with Kristine Rusch and I'm now a fan.
This book is so much more than a sci-fi story on another planet. Lets look at the players...
... First we have two cops and their duties to serve and protect the citizens living on our moon colonies. Secondly we have three different aliens types ( all very strange) acting as bounty hunters looking for humans which have " harmed" their respective worlds . And finally the " fugitives " desperate to keep their new identities and remain free from alien " justice".
This story could easily be a seven part series of basic detective work and bureaucracy that stands in the way of human decency against ridiculous laws enacted in order to promote business between races.
Should you be captured by one of theses alien types your sentence could be anything from becoming a prisoner forced to work in a mine till you die, to having your first born child taken from you to be raised on a different planet ... all because you may have done something so minor as to teach an alien servant to speak english......and it all being perfectly legal!
The characters are detailed beautifully and the story moves quickly without unnecessary commentary.
If you love sci-fi coupled with police procedures then prepare to dive into one of the best stories on the market.

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mabg

hard to get into, but solidly worthwhile by the end

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2016

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It took me some time to get into this book, mostly because the beginning of the book is about a bunch of different people, all desperate and you aren't given any info about who they are or what's going on, or even which one the main character is. It's odd for the MC not to be the focus for so long, and so for a while, I wasn't sure I knew or liked the character or if I understood where the story was going. Partly that's because there isn't a lot of explanation or description given about the story universe either--you just have to pick it up in the course of things.

The book shifted over to worthwhile once the MC became the clear focus of the story. Flint turned out to be both very likeable and someone I can respect, especially once he began to make his own choices. His partner also grew on me as she became a more complex and complete person and started to treat Flint as a partner, though she never lost the cynical bitter edge. I'm curious to see what Rusch does with them in the next book in the series, as the plot of this book (though interesting and rather dense) seemed more like an intro to the people and world, especially to Flint. Well written, solid realistic characters, and aliens who are quite unusual. The three different alien races in the book are profoundly disturbing, but the reasons humans clash are mostly cultural, legal and political, rather than the more typical biological imperatives or military battles. Most of the conflict in the book happens within the human heart, as Rusch focusses on suffering caused by the law when the punishments don't seem fair or proportionate with the accused person's crime. Almost everyone in the book is hurting, and a lot of them are struggling to figure out the right thing to do now, after they've already screwed it all up, especially when all the choices seem wrong and will do even more damage. It's not as grim a book as that sounds, though, and ends on a very positive note that helps balance all the negative from the beginning.

6 people found this helpful

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Dr Susan

Excellent sci fi mystery/thriller/adventure

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2023

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But the premise is horrifying, and the aliens' view of justice is disturbing. Near the end of the book, Flint wonders if the aliens are manipulating humans. I wondered that early in the book. I like Flint and DeRicci. The story is definitely a page-turner.

One person found this helpful

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Peter Ffrench

imaginative concept

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2023

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Miles Flint is far too compassionate to carry on doing his job enforcing vicious sentences set by aliens on humans who probably didn't understand their transgressions. So many people are threatened by the collapse of the company hiding them and he feels compelled to help them somehow. His partner De Ricci who was somehow disgraced and demoted though we are left a bit in the dark about that, feels he should carry on as he is the best partner she has had in the job but he must do what his conscience tells him is right. Good start to a series, keep it up.

Goldrake

Intriguing and well written

Reviewed in Italy on September 3, 2015

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An intriguing main character and universe. I found some parts a bit infodump with regard to what characters feel and think, and to police or legal procedures, while on the other hand it is not clear how come in a future society so similar to ours (at least on the humans' side) privacy laws seem to have been suppressed so that the aliens can buy data so easily and some company can sell them without even being fined. Moreover, how is it possibile that disappearance services are not committing a crime (from the aliens' point of view) in helping people disappear and escape alien justice? But the narration is very good, I enjoyed it and I will buy the sequel. I guess I'll find the answers.

Amberyl

Fesselnde Gratwanderung zwischen "Recht" und dem moralisch "Richtigen"

Reviewed in Germany on August 14, 2012

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In einer Zeit, da die Beziehung der Menschheit zu ihren benachbarten Alien-Völkern durch ein loses Bündnis geregelt ist, und Menschen auf Alien-Planeten nach geltendem Recht den dortigen Gesetzen unterworfen sind, ganz egal, wie grotesk und nach menschlichen Maßstäben verwirrend und barbarisch diese auch sein mögen, hat sich ein neuer Geschäftszweig entwickelt: die im Verborgenen agierenden "Disappearance Services", die es Menschen ermöglichen, mit einer neuen Identität unterzutauchen und so den drakonischen Strafen der Alien-Völker zu entgehen, die je nach Volk von bestialischen öffentlichen Exekutionen bis hin zum Verlust des erstgeborenen Kindes reichen können.

In dieser Umgebung werden Miles Flint, eben erst zum Detective befördert, und seine Partnerin, die bei ihren Vorgesetzten in Ungnade gefallene Noelle DeRicci, zu einem ungewöhnlichen Tatort im Raumhafen der Mondkolonie Armstrong Dome gerufen: Eine offenbar gestohlene Space Yacht mit mehreren Leichen an Bord.
Bei den Morden scheint es sich auf den ersten Blick um eine legale Exekution zu handeln, ein klarer Fall. Erst als in kurzer Folge weitere ungewöhnliche Ereignisse eintreten - die Landung eines baugleichen und offenbar ebenfalls gestohlenen Schiffs, dessen einziger Passagier eine verängstigte und vor der Gefangennahme durch die Rev fliehende Frau ist, und die Entführung zweier menschlicher Kinder durch Vertreter des Volkes der Wygnin - beginnen die beiden Ermittler zu erahnen, dass sie es hier nicht mit einem gewöhnlichen Fall zu tun haben, sondern etwas viel Größeres im Gange ist.

Kristine Katryn Rusch entwirft ein sehr glaubhaftes Zukunftsszenario und eine Welt, die sowohl Licht als auch Schatten beherbergt, denn all die vielfältigen Chancen und Möglichkeiten, die die Besiedelung fremder Lebensräume für die Menschen bietet, haben doch auch ihren Preis, wenn gegensätzliche Kulturen aufeinanderprallen, und schon aus bloßen Missverständnissen verhängnisvolle Konsequenzen erwachsen können.
Vor diesem moralischen Dilemma stehen auch Flint und seine Kollegin, die einerseits dem geltenden Recht verpflichtet sind, es aber andererseits kaum mit ihrer eigenen menschlichen Logik und ihren eigenen ethischen Werten vereinbaren können, zwei unschuldige Kinder als Entschädigung für die aus Unwissenheit begangenen vermeintlichen Verbrechen ihrer Eltern einem fremdartigen Volk zu überlassen, oder die Flüchtige für eine "Tat", die nach menschlichem Ermessen nicht nur kein Verbrechen, sondern im Gegenteil, die Verhinderung eines solchen war, in ein Zwangsarbeitslager zu überführen.

Trotz all dieser ethischen Aspekte, die stark zum Nachdenken anregen, wirkt die Geschichte jedoch an keiner Stelle moralisierend, sondern bleibt in erster Linie dem Ermittler-Thema in bester CSI-Manier treu, wodurch sich das Buch durchgehend spannend und flüssig liest.

Aus meiner Sicht ein äußerst intelligentes und erfrischend unaufgeregtes Buch, das mit wenig Pathos und Flitter auskommt, und mit großartigen, lebendigen und glaubhaften Charakteren sowie einem rasanten und gut durchdachten Plot besticht.

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nw

interessanter Beginn einer spannenden Serie mit dämlichem Hintergrund

Reviewed in Germany on September 28, 2017

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Ein guter Beginn einer spannenden und interessanten Serie. Eigentlich hätte das ganze ja 5 Sterne verdient wenn die Autorin nicht so typisch amerikanische Ansichten hätte.
Zur Erklärung:
Die Erde ist in ein Handelsgeflecht mit anderen Zivilisationen, die auf anderen Planeten leben eingebettet. Und man stelle sich vor: die Menschen sollen sich, wenn sie sich auf einem Planeten befinden, der zu einer anderen Zivilisation gehört, nach deren Regeln und Gesetzen verhalten! Und bei Verstoss gegen jene Regeln und Gesetze wird die Person nach den Gesetzen der Gesellschaft, auf dessen Planeten sie sich befindet, bestraft.
Man fühlt die Empörung der amerikanischen Schreiberin, die sich anscheinend nicht vorstellen kann sich nach den Regeln anderer Kulturen zu richten - schon gar nicht, wenn diese Regeln anders als die "unseren" - im Buch die Regeln der nach amerikanischem Vorbild geschriebenen Erdbevölkerung - sind.
Diese engstirnige Prämisse versaut mir leider immer den ersten Band der Serie - obwohl die Geschichte flüssig zu lesen ist und die Charaktere interessant und vielschichtig sind. In den folgenden Bänden ist immer weniger von dieser haarsträubenden "Ungerechtigkeit" die Rede, was deutlich zur Verbesserung der Geschichten beiträgt.

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Velo Mitrovich

Glad there is a series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2022

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Before going on holiday I got a zillion books on Kindle, this being one of them. Coming back I noticed I hadn’t read it but had zero idea what it was about. I decided to go into it completely cold. I was very surprised then just how enjoyable of read it was. There are characters you care about, a fascinating basic concept, and I am looking forward to reading more.

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The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel (Retrieval Artist Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

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