2025 science fiction mystery novella. Dorothy Gentleman, ship's
detective aboard a starship on a thousand-year voyage, suddenly finds
herself incarnated in the body of a stranger, as a result of an
emergency backup program she wasn't even aware of. Someone aboard the
ship has just been murdered, and Dorothy's main recorded personality
has been erased. So now what?
Well, this is fun. In a setting where people are functionally
immortal, why do you murder someone if they won't stay murdered? How,
and why, did someone wipe a completely different recorded personality?
And is it possible that Dorothy has unwittingly overwritten the actual
murderer?
Some of it crumples a bit when you poke it. These people are happy to
drop in and out of a series of bodies for the voyage, but everyone
expects they'll settle down and live out a normal human lifespan once
they get where they're going? Why are the personality records
physically shelved rather than being multiply recorded across diverse
locations? Most of this is to make the plot work, but Waite is a good
enough writer, and clearly having such a good time translating Golden
Age detective tropes into space, that I found it easy to forgive her.
There are also lovely atmospheric descriptions of this ship that's
clearly designed to provide a pleasant, if sometimes baroque,
environment for its passengers and crew. Altogether recommended.