Book excerpt: From Alexander C. Irvine, the Locus Award-winning author of A SCATTERING OF JADES, comes a thrilling new robot mystery set in the world of the late SF Grand Master and beloved author, Isaac Asimov. Exiled to the colony Nova Levis, roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess have tried to make their best of their situation, after exposing an anti-robot conspiracy on Earth five years before that cost them their jobs and their freedom. But all that is about to change. . . A human has been murdered on Kopernik, a space station orbiting the Earth, and all the clues point toward a robot as the killer. But how can that be, when robots are programmed to never bring harm to humans? It’s a familiar situation for Derec and Ariel—the sort of mystery that led to their current status as political pariahs. Still, not even an exiled robot expert can turn down an opportunity to add his expertise to the investigation, and before too long, Derec is on his way to Kopernik. Ariel, meanwhile, has a mystery of her own to unravel. With the help of old friends—and potentially new enemies— Derec searches for the identity of a killer, unaware that Ariel is walking directly into the center of the web of intrigue....