It is the year 2142 and in the city of Newcastle there is a mystery that needs to be solved. Police detective Sidney Hurst is called on the scene when a body is fished out of the Tyne river. As soon as he lays eyes on the corpse with the wound in the chest he knows that he is in deep - the body is a North. The North family is the most powerful family in mankind's inter-planetary expanse and they run Northumberland Interstellar which is responsible for providing all of the bio fuel humanity relies on. Nobody messes with the North family and of course their response to any threat is swift and brutal. Someone will be convicted of this crime and it will certainly happen quickly, evidence be damned. Unfortunately for Sid, he is now stuck in the middle of this mess.

That set-up may sound like this is a simple little sci-fi murder mystery but that is far from the truth. This book is over 1000 pages long and the audiobook clocks in at over 36 hours. As Sid starts the investigation into this murder case he begins to unravel a giant ball of yarn. The Norths are a family of clones and there is an unfortunate side effect to the cloning process used to create them. Each generation of North degrades from the prior one until they become unstable thus limiting their numbers. The murder victim is a 2North, which is 2nd generation and near the top of North family hierarchy. The method used to kill the North is also of significance because of how unique it is. Five blades were inserted into the victim's heart and used to shred it to pieces, most likely five blades attached to the end of someone's fingers.

What makes this very interesting is that the same method was used to kill Bartram North 22 years earlier. Angela Trumelo was convicted of that murder but she remains imprisoned to this day so she is not a suspect. However, she always claimed that she didn't do it and that an "alien" being murdered Bartram and ran off. After being arrested, Angela was tortured and subjected to every known interrogation method to extract the truth from her yet her story never waivered. With this second murder it looks like it might be possible that Angela was actually telling the truth. Is there some kind of alien being running around Newcastle? With the inter-planetary gateway to St Libra in Newcastle is it possible that some sort of sentient alien lifeform snuck through?

This investigation takes place in a rich universe where the HDA (Human Defense Alliance) is tasked with protecting human planets from the Zanth. These entities seem to swarm in from another dimension to swallow up whole planets and devour everything in their path. The Zanth are a force that the HDA has little ability to resist so the possibility that yet another sentient alien being could exist is very intriguing to them. So with the familiar forces of police, military, and business working mostly against each other, Sid's investigation faces one challenge after another.  It all makes for some good science fiction that kept me interested the whole time. There is a nice mix of new and familiar here and Hamilton does a good job of teasing out possibilities without revealing too much. If you are looking for a nice long read this one is worthy of your consideration and if you plan to listen know that Toby Longworth does a pretty good job on the narration.