In a world where 999 out of every 1000 people killed deliberately disappear and reappear in their own homes, with their bodies reset to pre-murder status, it seems that murder is a thing of the past. And, of course, a new industry grows up around this new fact of life. What if an operation was going wrong, and the patient was going to die? Have a licensed professional on standby to kill them, so that they reappear safely and you can try again. Our protagonist is one of these “Dispatchers”, who gets involved in the disappearance of one of his colleagues, working with the local police to unravel the mystery.
This is a nice, tight novella, where Scalzi pulls together a clever mystery and the world-building necessary for it, together with his trademark snark into a satisfying whole. There’s a lot of implications of this new world and it sounds like the inhabitants, as well as the readers, are only just getting to grips with it.
This is the first in a series, set in this world. There’s definitely scope for more stories here and I’ll look out for others in the series.
