SPACE CASE
Stuart Gibbs
2015
Simon & Schuster
SPACE CASE by Stuart Gibbs is a clever “whodunit” set in the year 2041, where NASA has rebooted and has made a permanent human colony on the moon, cleverly dubbed “Moon Base Alpha”. The story revolves around a 12 year old Hawaiian boy named Dashiell Gibson, a lunarnaut.
Dashiell was sent with his family up to “Moon Base Alpha” because both his parents are brilliant scientists who were thought to do some good on MBA. They were told it would be full of all the comforts of home. The friendly description was far from the truth. Firstly, there were no murderers back home. Secondly, there was not evil plumbing or claustrophobic rest areas. The man murdered on MBA was Dr. Holtz, an expert on low-gravity human physiology. The doctor was murdered early in the morning by being locked into an airlock with no source of oxygen or protection. Though, before Holtz died, Dashiell was in the bathroom and heard Holtz was having a conversation with someone but there was no response. When the news broke, the base captain, Nina, said it was a suicide, but Dashiell thought differently and was punished. Despite that, Dashiell persisted and tried to get video footage by asking a newcomer, Kira, to hack the security system. They found that Holtz had left a message in sign language which leads to the discovery of the murderer. During the period after the discovery of the message, both Dashiell’s and Kira’s lives were in danger, from giant robotic claws to crazy rich pricks.
What makes the story more interesting than it already is, is that the characters have literally nowhere to go. You are permanently trapped with a murderer. Even in Agatha Christie’s “Mousetrap”, the people could have departed from the house and into the snow, but here; the land outside is a wasteland with no air or food and even if you brought some, you would die in a day, and you know what they say, “no one can hear you scream in space”. The end is also extremely satisfying with one huge twist that explains everything clearly.
This being my first review for Crimespree, this was a very good book to start my time writing for the magazine.
Review by Conor Carroll
Conor Getting his nerd on at C2E2 2015 with Jon
