Steele does a wonderful job with details of the logistics, economics, and demographics of Clarke County, a recreational world in space. Writing style is witty and one must dig through that to get to the stories. The omniscient characters are annoying and distract from the scifi whodunit, which I think is the point? Some say that it ends poorly, but I wouldn't know because I never got there. Boring in the middle and I've got better things to do than spend time in that dimension. This two star rating is going downhill from the last 3 star rating of book #1; thus, I'm thinking that this "Near Space" series is done for me. ( )

While I generally enjoyed this book, it did have a couple of annoying reveals concerning characters later in the book that made me want to throw it at a wall.

This is the only Allen Steele book that I have read. I probably will give him another try, but I could not bring myself to give this one more than 3 stars. ( )