Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman, 1)
Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by a formidable no-nonsense auntie of a detective
A mind is a terrible thing to erase...
Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty's most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.
Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.
Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes...
Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, this novella is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’s next installment.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Okay, so I do more of a "book babble" than a book review. Think of it like this, you and I meet up for coffee ☕ and a little chit chat 💬. You ask me what I'm reading.
I say "I just read 'Murder by Memory' by Olivia Waite". Then you say "oh! How was it?" And I say....
I say "I just read 'Murder by Memory' by Olivia Waite". Then you say "oh! How was it?" And I say....
Well, I wanted a shorter book that I could read in bed on a weekend morning. And this one was perfect for that. I had started the first few lines already while eating tacos at the Ohio tavern (yes their tacos are back!) and even just the beginning had me hooked. And then the next morning I finished the entire thing laying in bed. It's just about 100 pages long total.
But it is so precisely and tightly written. It was a such an amazing book. Absolutely blown away. I highly recommend it. No reservations. No qualifications. None of the "if you like such and such then you might like this" qualifiers. If you read, you will love this book. Especially when it's a nice quick short read? Absolutely get it, check it out from your local library or whatever you need to do but absolutely read it!
It's one of those stories where I'm just in awe at how much is in so few pages. It is a murder mystery. And a smart good mystery that felt original. And definitely had a little
Noir flavor sprinkled across the edges? But also absolutely sci-fi. Not a spoiler because they tell you in the first few pages. But it takes place on a spaceship on a very very long journey. And everyone has what they call a memory book. Where your personality is essentially downloaded into a book, like an exceptionally huge hard drive that looks like a book. But it is not synced perfectly You have to actively download your current self. So your death and the time right before your death are never recorded in that book. You are reset from the time of your last backup. Which is a really interesting concept which makes it really good sci-fi. I'm not doing it justice. It's so much more than that.
Noir flavor sprinkled across the edges? But also absolutely sci-fi. Not a spoiler because they tell you in the first few pages. But it takes place on a spaceship on a very very long journey. And everyone has what they call a memory book. Where your personality is essentially downloaded into a book, like an exceptionally huge hard drive that looks like a book. But it is not synced perfectly You have to actively download your current self. So your death and the time right before your death are never recorded in that book. You are reset from the time of your last backup. Which is a really interesting concept which makes it really good sci-fi. I'm not doing it justice. It's so much more than that.
It's also queer in the most perfectly ordinary way. You love who you love.
And it's a page turner. I absolutely would have stayed up all night if this had been longer. And even if this had been a thousand pages I would have wanted more at the end.
And all of this is blended so seamlessly and so perfectly.
Oh, did I tell you that there is a yarn shop on this spaceship? And somehow without making it feel jarring or obtrusive or out of place there's the most perfect description of that perfect yarn shop. Set on the spaceship! and it feels like it belongs and so familiar at the same time. I will absolutely be looking up anything else that Waite has written.
I really enjoyed this short packed murder mystery where it plays with a futuristic dimension where your body and mind are separated. The author did a good job navigating the explanations of the dimension to keep the reader interested and the LGBTQ presence. I would read another book from this series.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.