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eBook Category: Science Fiction Locus Poll Award Nominee, Hugo Award Nominee, AnLab Award Nominee
eBook Description: In a future where humans engage in galactic commerce with a multitude of unscrupulous aliens, Earth's mega-corporations are held to strict alien laws, and relatives of corporate executives are often abducted as cruel alien revenge for the slightest business infraction. The only chance for a target to hide ... is to Disappear--erasure of all personal records, genetic alteration, and a new life with a new name in a new place. For an exorbitant fee under non-negotiable terms of employment, private detective Miles Flint finds the Disappeared.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2001

817 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [68 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [53 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [53 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [405 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [58 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [62 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [120 KB] , hiebook (KML) [158 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [82 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [47 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [60 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [88 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [81 KB]
Words: 18270
Reading time: 52-73 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

A good mystery story is difficult to write well, and a good science fiction story is difficult to write well ... Rusch does both here. I'm insanely jealous. This is an excellent futuristic story about a private investigator who finds missing people--a retrieval artist. It's very well written, and I'm very excited to find that she's going to write more of them. -Scott Danielson, Fictionwise Recommender

"...the novella "The Retrieval Artist" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Miles Flint, our hard-boiled 1st person narrator, is the artist of the title. He finds people who have disappeared--in this future, see, humanity does regular business with several alien races that have no concept of forgiveness. So people who run afoul of these aliens have two choices: be hunted down and killed, or disappear." -Michael H. Payne, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

I had just come off a difficult case, and the last thing I wanted was another client. To be honest, not wanting another client is a constant state for me. Miles Flint, the reluctant Retrieval Artist. I work harder than anyone else in the business at discouraging my clients from seeking out the Disappeared. Sometimes the discouragement fails and I get paid a lot of money for putting a lot of lives in danger, and maybe, just maybe, bringing someone home who wants to come. Those are the moments I live for, the moments when it becomes clear to a Disappeared that home is a safe place once more.

Usually, though, my clients and their lost ones are more trouble than they're worth. Usually, I won't take their cases for any price, no matter how high.

I do everything I can to prevent client contact from the start. The clients who approach me are the courageous ones or the really desperate ones or the ones who want to use me to further their own ends.

I try not to take my cases personally. My clients and their lost ones depend on my objectivity. But every once in a while, a case slips under my defenses--and never in the way I expect.

This was one of those cases. And it haunts me still.