Station Eternity

This was really good fun - but absolutely not what I expected.The Premise: There is a woman around whom murders seem to occur suspiciously often and who seems to almost miraculously put the pieces together to solve the crime before the police. That's pretty much the plot of every “Cozy Mystery” series from Miss Marple, to the [b:The Vampire Knitting Club 41882197 The Vampire Knitting Club (Vampire Knitting Club #1) Nancy Warren https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537203595l/41882197.SY75.jpg 65375197]. The difference is that this protagonist, Mallory, actually realises that this is not normal and desperately tries to avoid other people to prevent them dropping dead in a reliably intriguing manner. When humanity contacts aliens (in the very near future) Mallory begs a lift and moves to a space station in the hope that, by being away from humans, the murders will stop. Of course they don't...they just get more interesting.What I Expected: I thought that this would be a self-aware, low stakes comedy, playing on our understanding of “Cozy Mysteries”. Sort of along the lines of “What would a book co-written by Agatha Christie and Douglas Adams look like?”. I was wrong.What I It Was Really Like: What I found was that it was not really a comedy - there are some chuckle inducing moments, but this was less “Ha! Isn't it funny how murders always happen when she is there?” and more on the side of “If people dropped dead around you, wouldn't you be traumatised?”. Poor Mallory is only just holding it together. That said, I was just starting to get worried that the book was going to be depressing when it launched into introducing us to the world. This is a fascinating universe that Ms Lafferty has created, with a cast of weird, funny and interesting creatures and characters. Then the real plot kicked in and things got interesting....and then just when I thought I knew the direction the book was going in, that was when the real, real plot revealed itself and things got epic in a really fun way.OK, there were bits when things seemed to drag, and the flashbacks in the middle of the book got a little too much for my taste, but was it worth it? Oh yes! The final third of the book was just gold and really left me wanting to spend more time with these characters.