Spare Man is a sci-fi mystery that blends an almost retro style science fiction setting with a murder mystery headed up by an unusual sort of detective. Tesla Crain, an inventor in her own right and also heiress to a significant family fortune, is on a luxury spaceship celebrating her recent wedding. However her enjoyment is rudely interrupted when another guest is murdered onboard and her new husband is accused of the crime. It's up to Tesla (and her service dog Gimlet) to prove her husband's innocence if she wants to enjoy married life after the honeymoon.

I have very conflicted feelings on this story. I really love following detectives as they track down a killer and have previously really enjoyed underdog characters like Agatha Christie's Poirot. And while Poirot is quite smart and frequently undervalued, he's not always terribly likeable. So I thought I'd really enjoy following Tesla but unfortunately, I found her to be a very frustrating character. I liked that Kowal really put in the effort to show how Tesla struggled with PTSD and chronic pain but I really struggled to root for someone whose first instinct is to bulldoze everyone in her path and threaten legal action against anyone standing in her way. It felt like Kowal attempted to have a conversation on privilege with having other characters point out to Tesla that she's bullying people who have minimal say in the matter but it never really felt like she learned from that, she just turned around and did it again.

Slight spoilers on my frustration with the ending: I also didn't love the resolution of the murder mystery at the end because it didn't feel like the kind of thing you could possibly have guessed. It had a bit of a Scooby Doo vibe that I found substantially more charming in the cartoon than in a murder mystery book. I really prefer mysteries where I might not guess it at the end, but I could have if I'd been following the clues closely enough. I really don't think that's possible here because you don't have enough information to do that.

That said, I really loved the setting of this one. The sort of retro sci-fi element was super fun and when Kowal dipped into scientific explanations on how the ship worked, it was one of the rare times that I didn't tune out of a sci-fi explanation. It was easy to understand the elements of the world and I honestly would happily spend more time in that world. I also really liked Tesla's husband, who was a lot more sympathetic and interesting to me because he had a background as a detective and had to deal with some elements related to Tesla's fame.

Overall, while I enjoyed some elements of the story, my frustration with the main character and the ending really brought the rating on this one down for me. If Kowal does make this a series, I'd be tempted to see if future installments worked better for me so we'll see. I think if you enjoy mystery blended with speculative elements and can deal with some of the things that frustrated me, this could be more fun for you.