Darkside A novel

Retired colonel Carl Butler has the worst best luck. As his previous adventures (Planetside, Spaceside, and Colonyside) have proven, he somehow always manages to get his team out of every worst-case scenario, and his team is sure this missing-person case won't be an exception. Butler wants to give 12-year-old Eliza Ramiro good news about her missing dad, but the best he may be able to offer her is closure. That his hunt to provide it will put him in the crosshairs of two rapacious corporations (who have tried to kill him before) is par for Butler's course. The book combines a deadly mystery with an edge-of-one's-seat caper plot and tells it in Butler's wry, self-aware, self-deprecating voice. It's a story about putting himself in danger and pulling his team out of the fire that he's gotten them into--again--and dealing a bit of well-deserved punishment to whomever he can. VERDICT Readers who can't resist that world-weary voice, enjoy SF/mystery capers such as Suzanne Palmer's "Finder Chronicles" and the soldier stories of John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series, or simply like their military SF with multiple twists will be thrilled by Butler's latest misbegotten adventure.--Marlene Harris