I don’t know what exactly made me pick up this book, because I am only lukewarm on the cover and the description sounded almost too good to be true, but I am so glad I did. There’s always room for cozy mysteries on a generation ship in my reading schedule, especially if they are quick reads with clever protagonists.
MURDER BY MEMORY
by Olivia Waite
Published: Tordotcom, 2025
Ebook: 112 pages
Series: Dorthy Gentleman #1
My rating: 7.5/10
Opening line: Near the topmost deck, in a small lift with glass walls and flickering buttons, I, Dorothy Gentleman, ship’s detective, opened a pair of eyes and licked a pair of lips and awoke in a body that wasn’t mine.
Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by a formidable no-nonsense auntie of a detective.
A mind is a terrible thing to erase…
Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.
Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.
Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…
Dorothy Gentlemen wakes up in the wrong body. Waking up in a new body is no reason for distress, in general, as she’s done it several times already. Waking up in a different body than the one she usually inhabits, however, means something has gone wrong. Dorothy learns soon enough – via the hilarious ship AI – that not only has her own memory been saved from destruction by being put in the nearest body available, but also that there is a dead body on the ship. The good thing is: Dorothy is a detective, so figuring out what happened and why is exactly what she was going to do anyway. Now the stakes are simply a little bit higher.
This was such a delightful, quick read! We are introduced to the HMS Fairweather and its workings quickl as we breeze through the plot, just as we find out who Dorothy Gentleman is and why she is even on the ship. A woman in her mid-fifties (although currently residing in the body of a much younger one), Dorothy has accompanied her nephew, who is incidentally the inventor behind the technology that lets people upload their minds and put them back into fresh bodies whenever the time arrives. A generation ship of a different kind, the Fairweather immediately intrigued me and I want to learn so much more about it in future volumes. This was other reviewers’ biggest caveat – that there is so much left to learn. But I felt that I got enough information to pique my interest and keep the plot rolling, yet not so much that it didn’t leave me wanting more.
But the heart of the novella is the murder mystery, of course. Given that this book is only 112 pages long, you’d think everything gets resolved fairly easily or that the murder in question wasn’t all that complex. You’d be wrong. Sure, things do unravel quickly, but the plot never felt rushed at all, quite the opposite. I sank into these pages and was hooked from beginning to end, delighting in Dorothy’s cleverness. The circumstances of the murder are, indeed, quite complicated, but – again – never in a way that made me feel like I couldn’t keep up. Because Olivia Waite skillfully feeds her readers more and more background information about the ship’s technology and about the characters involved, as Dorothy unravels the knotty yarn that is the heart of the mystery.
I also enjoyed – and hope to learn a bit more about – Dorothy’s past relationship as well as her family. Dorothy was married to a woman but had to end the relationship. I won’t tell you why, just that the ship’s amazing technology has to do with it. The idea of storing your mind in a phyiscal vessel to be uploaded later may not be new, but I appreciated how Olivia Waite made it her own by adding certain specifics that I hadn’t seen used that way before. Like taking a sort of “nap” with your mind stored safely away and not being uploaded into a new body, even though one would be available. It’s like a sabbatical from life, if you will, and somehow, looking at the state of the world, I can relate.
I desperately want to get to know Dorothy’s nephew better. He comes across as the lovable eccentric inventor who means well but messes up quite badly. Needless to say, I adored him and am so excited that the second book will feature him prominently.
Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple is a pretty great comparison. I adored the cozy aspect of the story. The murder having already happened and nobody being in immediate danger made this a pretty relaxed read. But there’s also Dorothy’s love for knitting and the fact that there is a yarn shop on the ship. It made me want to spend even more time aboard the Fairweather and see how its people spend their days.
The characters, although there aren’t many, all came to life, but my favorite was probably the ship’s AI, especially during the electric storm that sets the whole story in motion and makes the AI behave as if it were drunk. Although this book tells a full story that leads to a satisfying end, it managed to make me excited and eager for more. You never know how long this type of series will be, but one more volume is set to come out in 2026, and it involves a surprise baby left on Dorothy’s nephew’s doorstep. I am already giddy with excitement and I hope to read many more Dorothy Gentleman adventures.
MY RATING: 7.5/10 – Very, very good!
