Leanne Olson

by Eddie Robson
releasing June 28, 2022 from TorDotCom

Drunk On All Your Strange New Words is a witty sci-fi murder mystery.  This one took me a bit to get into (I didn’t love the story until around the 25% mark) but by the end I wound up really, really enjoying it.

This one caught my eye because of the mix of science fiction and mystery.  I’m a fan of both genres but haven’t read many books combining them — plus, there’s the very British humour that ties it all together.  Our protagonist Lydia is perfection: she’s smart and hilarious and gives no fucks about what you think of her.

The basic story is that Lydia is a human interpretor for a cultural ambassador from an alien race called the Logi, who speak telepathically.  When her boss is murdered, she’s the prime suspect, and she has to figure out who killed him before she’s arrested, or murdered herself.

I loved the alien race of the Logi and the bits about interpretation.  I wish there’d been more information about their history with humanity, but I also thought it was interesting that we were so immersed in Lydia’s worldview that she didn’t need to tell us the history, so I think it worked.  The mystery was nice and twisty and kept me guessing.

I did find this one difficult to get into, as I mentioned above.  I didn’t feel emotionally connected with the story until a good quarter of the way through.  I’m glad I stuck with it because the last half of the book was just so much fun.

Thank you to Netgalley and TorDotCom Publishing for my review copy of this book.