A Talent for War

This is the First Alex Benedict book, and McDevitt establishes the basic structure of the series. Alex's uncle has disappeared on a missing space ship and Alex has returned to his home planet to take over his uncle's estate. The irony here is his uncle was an amateur archeologist in favor preservation, and Alex deals in space merchandise, selling artifacts and mementos to the highest bidder. As he meets Chase Kolpath, his uncle's former spaceship pilot, they form a relationship, and she signs on to continue working for him.

I like the McDevitts of the Alex Benedict and Priscilla Hutchins series better than his satnd-alone books. To be fair, the stand -alones were early works, and his wriitng style matured and improved the more he wrote. This early one shows the promise of his maturation as a writer, his sure manipulation of characters and plot, and it is a page-turner.