Gifts for Readers #7: Tisiphone’s Quest

We are now at #7 of my list of gifts for readers, all written by veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy.  (And have I mentioned that all these books were published in 2018?  And these are only the 2018 novels I know about— there may have been more, because not everybody tells me what they’re doing.)

R. Jean Stevenson’s Tisiphone’s Quest was workshopped at Toolbox some years ago.  Here’s the cover copy:

Senior Detective Samantha “Sam” Sarafian gets her planet’s toughest cases. Her stack of homicide department honors is nice, but the thrill for Sam has always been in stretching her skill, in finding hidden information and putting it all together the way no one else can. Now a harmless antiquarian has been murdered, an artifact is missing from his collection, and the killers have fled off-world. To bring them to justice, Sam faces a puzzle that will take more than her intellect to solve. The murderers have cutting-edge magic, technology, and worlds in which to hide. They also have the artifact. In the right hands, it could be the key to limitless knowledge, and every day brings them closer to unlocking its secrets. Powerful, desperate people want those secrets. They’re not about to let one stubborn cop stand in their way. Sam’s allies are few, and her problems multiply as the chase moves across the galaxy. Her superiors have been suborned by the enemy; her spaceship AI keeps bending the rules; her pilot is definitely under a curse; and an alien wizard might be falling in love with her. If she and her team fail, technology that has already led one species to extinction falls into hands that won’t hesitate to use it for personal gain. If they succeed, their lives will never be the same.

Tisiphone’s Quest is available as a paperback and ebook at Amazon and as an ebook on Kobo.