Cabot Layne is a trader and businessman on the Dragonfire Space Station. While the Solar Festival is on, he is always looking to earn some extra cubics from the festivities. While looking amongst his stock, he stops with his most recent purchases, a set of required components for interstellar propulsion. While examining them to ensure their quality, he finds that the case they have been transported in is also giving off a weird signal. On further investigation, he finds a secret compartment containing several highly valuable, but also highly illegal, items. If he is found with them, he is going to prison for a long time. If he hands them in his reputation would be ruined and he doesn’t want to implicate the person he bought them from. But when he finds out that the race who own them will have a ship docking shortly, he sees an opportunity to return them without anyone knowing as well as making some profit along the way. All he has do to is convince a couple of his rivals that he is doing them a favour. How hard can it be.

This is a short sci-fi story set on the Dragonfire space station which fits into the original series without giving away any spoilers. The plot centres around the personable capability of Cabot rather than the goods themselves and indeed several of them may as well be MacGuffins for the parts they play. His personality is what shines through this book, whether it’s his experience in solving his problems or his good heart, even though he doesn’t really want to admit it. Following his thoughts and actions through the story works as well as any exposition. His interactions add more and more to the story and keep the plot moving along. Their are other minor characters and each gives a Cabot a chance to shop off another aspect of himself to the reader. The writing is enjoyable and expressive giving an excellent sense of the space station and the people inhabiting it and really brining to life the characters and their actions.

The book is well formatted and I didn’t notice any spelling or grammar errors. It may be in a single chapter, but each section is neatly broken out and it is very east to follow the story along. There are also some notes on the author and other stories to read if you enjoy this one.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading it and certainly worth a second look, not to find what I had missed but to enjoy a well put together tale of skulduggery in outer space.