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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: A private investigator who is sent on an interstellar mission to retrieve a kidnapped heiress discovers that truth is stranger than fiction.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Whatdunits, 1992
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2004

31 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [30 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [35 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [16 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [212 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [17 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [77 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [88 KB] , hiebook (KML) [47 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [14 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [18 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [46 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [27 KB]
Words: 4932
Reading time: 14-19 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

It was a strange case right from the start. Mrs. Polona Heaven said that her daughter, one Kara Heaven, had been kidnapped by aliens. She hired us to get the girl back with the stipulation that there was to be no scandal or political embarrassment involved in the girl's retrieval. That was how she put it: retrieval. That should have tipped me off, but I was still relatively new to the business. The technical stuff, like tracing missing persons, verifying identities, tailing suspects--you can learn all of that pretty quickly. But reading people? No, that takes years of experience.

You may wonder what a nice girl like me is doing in this sordid business. Actually, ever since the first Interstellar Arms Reduction Treaty was signed, a lot of perfectly respectable people (i.e., ex-military types who sincerely believed they were honor-bound to destroy two whole planets in the Incubus system before we learned that those poisonous molds were actually sentient beings) have gone into private investigations. What's more, business is booming in the private sector. Let's face it, with the galaxy opening up and bureaucracy spearheading humankind's expansion into the Milky Way, there's not much point in expecting the government, the police, or the civil service to get anything done on behalf of the ordinary citizen. Sure, when the Governor of the United African States awoke one day to find her ceremonial tiara had been stolen, it was a big deal, and three interplanetary law enforcement networks searched half the solar system for the culprit (in addition to priceless gems, the tiara apparently had certain religious significance, and witch doctors far and wide were gleefully warning that the African union would crumble if the tiara were not successfully retrieved and the thief suitably punished). But if an ordinary person's tiara--or daughter--disappears these days, your only hope is to hire a team of private investigators.