The cover caught my attention, and the unusual blurb convinced me to give this book a try. Set in a fictional future where reproduction is controlled by the 'Program' and only approved humans are allowed to become parents at all, the murder of a 'red dirt girl' not only starts an investigation, but
also opens a lot of questions about the morality and rightfulness of the Program.
The first half of…mehrThe cover caught my attention, and the unusual blurb convinced me to give this book a try. Set in a fictional future where reproduction is controlled by the 'Program' and only approved humans are allowed to become parents at all, the murder of a 'red dirt girl' not only starts an investigation, but also opens a lot of questions about the morality and rightfulness of the Program.
The first half of the story was dragging along quite slowly and took some time to disentangle and understand the implications of the sci-fi like 'Program' world. Also, I did not enjoy some of the characters' language with their horridly garbled vocabulary (e.g. 'ovs'). When I reached that point where I only wanted to be done with the book, the second half transformed the story into a cleverly constructed and gripping murder investigation, peaking my interest once again.
Altogether, a not too bad sci-fi mystery once you leave the bumpy beginning behind.