Murders in the Gray

by Ed Robins

“All I wanted was to make time with the sensuous Jesse Alderman, but cantankerous Jazz had been accused of murder. Just some girl I’d met once. Still, sometimes you know an innocent face when you see one. Too bad no one will listen to me – not even my best friend.

“But when the consort of a royal is murdered under similar circumstances, suddenly everyone is all ears. Now the Earls who run the Starship Australis expect me to sort the damned thing out! And I’ve managed to piss off a group of vigilantes who seem to have only one thing in mind: making me dead."

Inspired by the grit of Mickey Spillane and the brevity of Elmore Leonard, Murders in the Gray is a sci-fi / mystery mash-up devised in the best traditions of the dime store paperback. It is the second in the Starship Australis Mysteries series, itself part of the 10 Cent Universe – a genre-bending macrocosm.

This story contains adult themes and language.

158 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 14, 2023

About the author

Ed Robins has been writing since the age of eleven. Robins’ father was an avid consumer of speculative fiction and raised Ed on a steady diet of television shows, books and movies to spark his imagination.

If there’s anything Robins likes more than science fiction, it’s old things, especially books. It inspired him to create The Ten Cent Universe by mashing together the styles of old dime store masters with modern science fiction.

Robins currently resides in Wichita, KS with his wife and two children, and tells too many "dad jokes".

Reviews

[Jennifer Parks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suspenseful mystery

I read this the day after reading the first Starship Australis story and again finished it in a sitting! These books are so fast paced I cannot put them down. The plot of this story was intricate and it was exciting to watch the characters reveal themselves.

[Matthew Futter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best detectives listen to their instincts while searching for evidence AND recognizing how much they *don’t* know as well as what they do. Tom Devoe is honest with himself about his demons and his abilities, and it’s delightful to read from his POV.

Two warnings: this book gets more explicit about some things than the previous one did. Also, **read these books in order**. There are details you’ll enjoy more if you discover them in sequence, but if you happen to start with anything other than “Chivalry Will Get You Dead”, the author keeps you filled in to enjoy the current book. I just wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on this excellent storytelling journey!

[W.H. Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Political intrigue, sex, and violence are the norm on the starship Austrailis, and in the second book of the series, Ed Robins treats us to all of the above. If you're a fan of Mickey Spillane and hardboiled detective fiction with a science fiction flavor, Murders in the Gray is the book for you.

[Amélie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good until I realised that all of the female characters in this book series are essentially sexual objects. They're either prostitutes, a woman he wants to sleep with or a woman who wants to sleep with him. Basically, you can tell this book was written by a man.