Before they decide, they and the other last-year cadets first spend a week on the university planet, visiting both of the colleges. A single day at the guardian school exhausts even the most highly trained of the cadets.
But the first night visiting the diplomat school ends in a very undiplomatic murder. One of the guests at a mock state dinner dies in the middle of the dessert course, a victim of a very gruesome poison. And the only suspect? Cadet Shackleton Fitz IV.
So Murdina Ritchie finds herself alone on a strange planet with its own set of rules, desperate to prove her partner's innocence. Hard enough under any circumstances, made harder still by the presence of two former Oymyakon cadets: Finn and Feena Berweger.
Can Ritchie defeat her old nemeses one more time? Maybe. Can she do it with her best friend and close partner in crime-solving trapped in police custody?
She has to.
An Undiplomatic Murder, book five in the Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries.
Kate MacLeod has written stories which have appeared in Analog, Strange Horizons and Mythic Delirium, among other places. She is also the author of two young adult science fictions series: The Travels of Scout Shannon, and The Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries. She also contributes to a serialized science fiction podcast called The Tales of the Chai Makhani Trio. She currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can learn more about her work at KateMacLeodWrites.com.