Frank Compton used to be an agent for the security forces of Earth, but that was a piece of cake compared to what he's had to deal with working for the aliens who run the Quadrail, an interstellar transportation system connecting a dozen civilizations across the galaxy. He's been trying to end the domination of an alien lifeform called the Modhri. This enormously powerful creature wants to rule the galaxy by controlling the thoughts of all its citizens. It does so by having parts of itself "infect" others on contact, and act as agents for it without them being aware they're being manipulated. When Frank and his assistant Bayta journey to investigate a connection between the Modhri and the Filiaelians, they come up against a conspiracy on the Quadrail. Passengers are being murdered...but something besides murder haunts the Quadrail. A plot is brewing that even the Modhri fears. And once again, Frank and Bayta may be the only ones who can stop it.
The Domino Pattern (2009) 382 pages by Timothy Zahn.
First book I've read in ages. A combination of things. The softball season started heating up, I was playing with my spreadsheets, the Michigan football team didn't totally suck (just the defense), my halogen lamp finally bit the dust and I needed to find a comfortable place to read that had some light, and the book I started didn't spark me.
This is the fourth book in the quadrail/Frank Compton series. In this episode Frank and Bayta are on a quadrail train to the other side of the galaxy, six weeks with no stops. For most of the book it reads like a locked room murder mystery. At one point Zahn/Compton actually use that exact term.
The reading was going quickly, but seemed to be focused all on the mystery, and not advancing the overall plot of the series. So I began to think, OK, we're going to have this adventure on the train, and the next book will pick up the Modhri storyline, when Frank and Bayta reach Filiaelian space.
I don't really want to give anything away, so saying that at the end the layers are peeled back one after the other may be giving away too much, but going back to the other books it was the same way. The mystery was solved and the Frank learned or deduced two or three secrets at the end of the book.
Zahn is one of my favorite authors, and this was no disappointment. You don't really have to start at the beginning of the series to enjoy this book, but you'll enjoy the other books more, if you don't know all the spoilers.
