Not often that Five Books recommendations don’t work for me, but this is one of those books.

Before I say anything else: Kowal writes the best husbands. Period. THE SPARE MAN does the wonderful magic trick of feeling both vintage and futuristic at the same time. It mixes a noir detective story with a space station which is on it’s flight from earth to mars. All the cocktails in this book added to atmosphere and were the actual reason I bought this book, because I loved the idea of every chapter having it’s own recipe as a starter. Lots of the people in this novel are intensely charming and I wonder if there will be a second novel about our protagonist-lovebirds as a detective-nerd-couple. Additionally there is a little dog, who gets lots of spotlight! There are some points one could criticize: in the first third the pacing is a little bit slow and the conflict between enormously rich Tesla and the security chief Wisor sometimes drifts into disagreeable classism. In addition to it the privilege of wealth seems to be the most important problem solver rather than the brains of the protagonists. It is addressed sure, but still it leaves a sour tastes. But there were also ideas which I loved very much: the whole book tries to apply the idea of gender neutrality to this genre. Not only pronouns, but descriptions as well. It even seem to be a plot tool at some points. I also found the abundance of details to create moments more often than not atmospheric and absorbing, for example discussions about fries. Overall a very good read for making yourself comfortable in winter time while holding a cocktail in one hand and the book in the other. “Pipers sigh was an eloquent and scathing essay on people who asked unnecessary questions that implied she was not doing her job.” “Besides I enjoy the rituals of beverages.”