Blue Shift – This was a fun read in the series.

Blue Shift (Backyard Starship, #5).
By J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert.
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.

When Van gains rank as a Peacemaker, he becomes a bigger target for the criminals scattered among the stars.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

On a distant world under an alien sun, hunters and their companions—the Rovan—bond in a ritual as old as their civilization. But one of the hunters is missing, and Van, along with his growing crew, knows where to look. Climbing up into the rarified air of the super-rich, Van uncovers a new enemy: The Fade.

And they are as cruel as the stars are many. A gang of heartless killers, the Fade will stop at nothing in the name of profit.

Which is fine with Van, as he’ll stop at nothing in the name of justice.

Tracking his quarry across a dozen systems, Van, Torina, Perry and Icky—along with Zenophir, the new technician—will untangle a conspiracy of betrayal and death. As Van soon discovers, the Fade never lose.

But they’ve never met Van and his crew.

This was a rather fun read in the Backyard Starship series. It is the fifth book in the series and although they have been a bit uneven they have always been between three and four stars. This one is one of the better ones.

It is a fun mix between detective work, snarky dialogue and ass kicking. The latter both in space and on the ground.

As the book blurb states conspiracies does indeed get untangled in this book. It is a bit of a shame that the author seems to be so happy to add conspiracies and corruption among the Peacekeepers, especially at the highest levels. I guess one thing I liked about this book is that Van gets to do a fair amount of clean up in that area. Hopefully there will be less of that in the next books. Otherwise there will soon not be any masters left.

I also like that Van continues to expand his merry band of bandits as well as continuing to upgrade his ship as well as his personal weaponry.

I’m still find the underlying story that has been running through these books a bit ridiculous though. I can buy the idea of stealing peoples minds and putting them to use in various ways but not in mundane machinery like trash managers. That’s just so much bullshit. You could buy some off the shelf hardware today to do that much cheaper and with much less risk.

Luckily the rest of the story, the quite charismatic characters, the really enjoyable dialogue and quite a lot of ass kicking makes up for that nonsensical detail.

These books are easy reading, certainly no literary masterpieces but fun reading nonetheless.