Release date: July 10, 2017
Subgenre: Science fiction mystery, space opera
About Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet:
Detective Piper Deez, newlywed but still hardboiled, is a solar system away from home investigating murder and thievery on Alta-na-Schell, the Winter Planet. Who can she trust? Who should she trust? Why didn't anyone tell her monogamy was going to be this difficult? Eye of the Storm, a domed city riven by clan rivalries and corruption—with only fingerlengths of shielding protecting its denizens from certain death—may hold some answers and, perhaps, even the end of Piper Deez.
If monogamy doesn't get to her first...
Excerpt:
“Detective Deez, it’s a pleasure.”
I recognized the woman extending her
hand in greeting from the case files. The top of Manager Tchivon’s head only
came to my chin. Her hair was the color of burnished steel and she wore the
standard business suit of a mining executive, wrinkle-free and spotless.
I smiled to myself as I offered the
palm of my hand in greeting. She pressed hers to mine. Mining executives stayed
as far away from actual mining as they possibly could. The muscles in her hand
were strong, though. A single ridge across her pale forehead marked her as a
member of the Jevrem clan.
Clans—large, extended families—are
what hold this society together and threaten to tear it apart. Hierarchy’s an
ugly thing if you kneel at the bottom of it. Not so bad if you sit on top and
don’t think too hard. The Drell clan perches on top, along with the Toshir and
Edos, each trying to shove the others further down.
“Manager Tchivon, thank you for
meeting me.”
“Not at all. My division is honored
the company chose to send you. Your reputation precedes you.”
“I’m flattered.” I turned to the
ship. “Computer: standard lock-down, please.”
<“Engaged. Good luck with your case.”>
Tchivon led me out of the docking
area and through the terminal. The building looked like the terminals on the
two other mining planets in this system. Even though the others were managed by
my family’s competitors, the Toshir and Edos, they were all the same. The
ships’ berths were always in fine working order, while the ticket counters and
waiting areas were run down, as were the ubiquitous cafés selling overpriced
food. I shifted the pack on my back as we passed tables crowded with hungry
customers and stepped through the terminal’s large, tinted glass entrance
doors.
The air was warm and stale, recycled
but not as bad as I was expecting. As we waited for a cab, I looked down into
the city, a bustling place only a few miles in diameter. A second industry of
tourism had developed around people’s fascination with Eye of the Storm’s
location and semi-miraculous ability to survive. Several thousand people lived
here, working in the mine or in one of the businesses that kept things running.
The streets were crowded with people, all sizes, shapes, colors and clanmarks,
residents pushing by the gawking tourists. Vehicles—both personal- and
business-class—zipped or lumbered through the air. Above them all floated the
clear dome and the white light of the eternal winter kept at bay.
Amazon | Candlemark & Gleam
About M. Fenn:
M.
Fenn was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and grew up
in Omaha, Nebraska. She’s lived in eight U.S. states and visited forty more, as
well as three Canadian provinces. M. Fenn has been a veterinary technician, a
radio dj, and an office manager for a house museum, among other things. She has
rescued marine mammals in California, seen the full moon rise over Chimney Rock
in Colorado, hiked Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, marched for women’s rights in
D.C., and driven U.S Hwy 50 from end to end by herself. She spent one winter
with the ghost of Herman Melville, reading his first editions and watching the
great whale of snow-covered Mt. Greylock from his study window.
Apparently permanently stuck to North
America, M. Fenn now lives and writes in the wilderness of southern Vermont
with her furniture maker husband and a clowder of ghost cats. Her short story
“Chlorophyll Is Thicker than Water” can be found in Candlemark & Gleam’s
2016 To Shape the Dark. Her
near-future dystopian novella “To The Edges” begins Crossed Genres’ 2013 Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women. Her alternate history
novella “So The Taino Call It” appears in Candlemark & Gleam’s 2012 Substitution Cipher. Science fiction
seems to be M. Fenn’s main bag, but she also tinkers with horror and fantasy.
She blogs spasmodically at mfennwrites.wordpress.com and can also be found on
Facebook more often than she would like.
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