A review by zebrakat
The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? No

3.5

I enjoyed this a bit more than I originally thought I would from the first chapter. This book is essentially a murder mystery on a space cruise. Tesla and Shal are newly weds trying to hide their identities and pretend to be normal people on their honeymoon when they get involved in solving a murder. 
Murder mysteries are generally not something I’m particularly interested in. The characters are also extremely rich and privileged which I also generally do not like reading about. This was especially exacerbated by the fact that Tesla uses all her wealth and connections the entire book to avoid her and Shal getting treated like normal people. The book also doesn’t provide any commentary on how being rich and avoiding consequences is a bad thing. The book essentially presents using an expensive lawyer for special treatment to be good because you know the protagonists are innocent. 
There was good disability representation in the book along with a service dog. 
The mystery ended somewhat abruptly and anticlimactically. It wasn’t that they actually ever figured it out but somehow stumbled across the answer.