I’ll be the first to admit that I love Murderbot so much that anything published in the series immediately gets a baseline rating of three stars… anything I find particularly amusing above and beyond expectation launches it up from there.

Once again, Murderbot finds itself having to actually work, and it’s not happy about it. When a dead body turns up on Preservation, all bets are off on a whole list of questions.

• Who’s the dead body?
• Why is there a dead body?
• Why is it here?
• Is there a threat to any of Murderbots friends?
• Did Murderbot perhaps kill the unlucky victim?

No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

To free itself from suspicions (and because it’s perpetually bored), Murderbot injects itself into the investigation (who are we kidding, they just do their own investigating and hope that law enforcement doesn’t get in the way) and goes hunting.

What follows is a fun detective story with a lot of twists and turns that eventually becomes clear, calling for some high-stakes action scenes, where Murderbot really gets to shine.

Always with the fun lightheartedness you can expect from a murdering free-willed SecUnit.

Enjoyed every minute of this great installment.