If you couldn't tell from the title, this book focuses on Pluto as the mystery setting. Why did Kingon skip over all the other planets and moons in our solar system to look at this one dwarf (or not) planet? I don't know, but maybe if I can get the author to agree to an email interview I can find out for us. Pluto is shown as a dumping ground for criminal types of all types. Rogue scientists to petty thieves end up there so why the heck is Molly off on an adventure with her gal pal, Jersey? Molly Bistro back on Mars has become so well known around the solar system that a mega corporation wants to franchise a version on the far-flung world.
Or do they?
The first two books in the series looked at murder fueled by business greed and at first that is what this story appears to be about. Without spoiling it for you, let me say that there are levels of mystery that go beyond monetary greed.
I think the story's complexity could have been a vehicle for deep social commentary along with the wacky "historical" tidbits that the characters toss out, yet I didn't feel that as much as I did in the first two books. The social commentary's foundation seems like a historical flashback to begin with, a reference to Europe's tossing their unwanted off onto "new" lands to both help the monarchies conquer and acculturate the indigenous populations as well as cleanse the old cities of their social guilt and while enacting social biases to do so. I actually have no problems with drawing from the past to think about how the future might look but I didn't more depth from the story, setting, or characters as I kept reading.
Comedy is tricky to do but particularly in written form where voice and body cannot send signals to the audience about what is funny or why. In this book, as in the first two of the series, the comedy is based on word play, historical mix-ups, and scientific misunderstandings. While that flown of weirdness continued in this third book, it seemed like more time was spent describing the setting and interactions with Pluto's citizens that didn't directly relate to the mystery than in the previous stories. I also felt like some background about other planets was tossed out when it could have been shown in another book or two set before this one. There is still good comedy here but not as much as I recall in the other books.
The narrative viewpoint is Molly's, but a lot of time we are told what is happening around her and to other people instead of seeing it and experiencing it with her. This was a odd set up of mostly first person and this not-quite third person narration that I felt interfered a bit with the comedic timing. I don't know if the editors at Guardbridge Books felt that the two previously successful books equaled them not doing as much oversight but there are paragraphs and pages I felt could tightened up for better mystery and comedic sense.
In the two previous books, I felt like I could relate to Molly though her friends weren't as interesting to me. Sadly, I felt like both Jersey and Trenton had bigger roles in this story and Molly was surprisingly clueless which annoyed me. At one point, when Molly's husband joins them on Pluto, we learn that perhaps as much a decade has passed between this book and Sherlock Mars and also that Molly finds and solves mysteries all the time. Yet, Molly's logic and observation was weaker, she is easily led astray, and even threatened in ways that I wouldn't expect a veteran amateur detective to be. Perhaps it was supposed to be funny, but I found it more sad.
The mystery spreads from the Pluto restaurant and out onto the rest of that world. I felt overwhelmed at several points in the story as I tried to keep track of what was connected to the mystery and to Molly and what was atmosphere or worldbuilding. More than six months of time is spent by Molly on Pluto and yet, when the mystery is solved, it could have almost been done without her since it is a matter of technology. That was deeply disappointing to me who feels the other two books allowed her to be more of a cozy mystery style detective.
What is as good is the worldbuilding. Kingon has done research and she is playing with history and science to tell a story. While new discoveries might threaten to date a hard or even soft science fiction mystery, by laying out how much our main characters really don't know, these "facts" can be read either realistically or comedically. We get a sense that a long time has passed between our 21st century and Molly's life because of how much of Pluto is being used by humans yet there is still that understanding that one wrong thing, one failure could result in mass death. When Molly and her friends are in danger from Pluto's environment, corrupt people, or greedy business, I felt that danger.
Which means for all of my criticizing above, I'm very happy that I got to read this third book but I wanted books that show Molly doing more of the detecting on other worlds so that her hubby's complaint that she is always drawn toward murders and crimes to solve has more weight. I also want to see Molly grow into the sleuth the first two books gave me hope she could be.
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