Colleen Mondor Reviews The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Malka Older (Tordotcom 978-1-250-90679-1, $20.99, hc, 224pp) February 2024.

Malka Older follows up her cozy science fiction mystery The Mimicking of Known Successes with the equally cozy science fiction mystery The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. Mossa and Pleiti are still together, although struggling just a bit with long distance due to Investigator Mossa’s job. Valdegeld University is still a bit of a hotbed of crime, this time with a missing student who ends up being one of many missing students and faculty, followed by a murder, which leads to all sorts of questions. The politics of settlement, both on Jupiter and Io, one of its moons, is delved into along with many academic issues that con­cern Pleiti and her university interests. Is everyone getting a bit too comfortable on Jupiter? Should they be trying harder to return to Earth? Should they be considering why studying Earth’s past is so much more reassuring than contemplating its future? And what about the events of the previ­ous book? Do they have some insight into what is happening in the current title?

Well, pull up a chair, get some snacks ready (you will get hungry reading this series) and im­merse yourself in all that Older has to offer. The romance is building, the banter is sparkling, the social niceties are embraced, and the questions are compelling. Older has her Holmesian rhythms nailed down and the world-building gets better and better; there is plenty to love on that score here. In fact, the only weakness in The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles may be in the mystery itself. While traveling about and questioning suspects keeps the plot moving, the actual reason behind the crime is relatively banal and the villain remains somewhat forgettable. They hardly appear on the page at all and the final confrontation seems a bit forced because of that; this is simply not a person the reader has much interest in, so their momentary boldness followed by quick capture is more of a footnote to all the observing and chat­ting that has filled the previous pages.

I do enjoy spending time in the company of Mossa and Pleiti and am deeply impressed by what Older has created with Valdegeld and life on Jupiter. However, as these are pertinent parts of any mystery, I wish that things like the murderer’s identity, or even why the crime was committed in the first place, seemed more important to me. With The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, I just cared that Mossa and Pleiti got to spend more time together and the villain’s machinations served almost as little more than required plot afterthoughts. For plenty of readers that will be enough though, and this sequel will leave them yearning for more.

This review and more like it in the May 2024 issue of Locus.

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