She Treads Softly: The Last Campaign

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The Last Campaign

The Last Campaign by Martin L. Shoemaker
10/6/20; 320 pages
47North

The Last Campaign by Martin L. Shoemaker is a highly recommended political thriller/murder mystery/procedural science fiction novel set on a Mars. This is a sequel to The Last Dance.

Rosalia Morais and Nicolau Aames are a couple who have established a life together in Maxwell City on Mars. The city is fast growing and with that crime is on the rise. When Rosie accepts the position as the first Sheriff of Maxwell City, she immediately begins to build a team and install in them a sense of responsibility and accountability, but can she get her team ready for arson, insurance fraud, political conspiracies, and murders? Suddenly Rosie has a murder and a huge mystery to solve that could affect the future of colonists on Mars.

Essentially The Last Campaign is a political thriller/procedural/mystery set on Mars. The science fiction aspects are basically the setting which put some limitations on actions and movements as they go through their daily lives on Mars and the background of the characters. It also feels in some ways like it is the story of a new Sheriff in town in the Old West, albeit a strong female Sheriff. But there are a whole lot of political machinations going on in this novel, so if you like political thrillers this may be a good choice for you. The interconnected cases are all tied into politics. The reelection shenanigans and muckraking reporter in the plot feel rather pertinent today.

The plot is solid, descriptive, and interesting. Descriptions of living on Mars are simply the background to the mystery. I haven't read the first book in the series, The Last Dance, which meant I was lacking some background stories and details that might have made my experience with the novel filled with a richer understanding of the characters and the colony. Personally, I didn't quite connect with the characters. Although they are developed, I didn't feel I knew them as well as people who read the first book. I also felt like the dialogue could have been written to flow more smoothly and in a realistic, conversational style.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of 47North.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.