Justice for a Price

"All I wanted was to find the psycho that killed a little girl, but my captain has other plans for me. A young man decided he couldn't handle a lifetime aboard the starship Australis, and took the easy way off. Problem is, his mama can't accept the truth, so now I gotta hold her hand while she grieves. "Or maybe there's more to the case than it seems." Inspired by the hardboiled grit of Mickey Spillane and the concision of Elmore Leonard, Justice for a Price is a sci-fi / mystery mash-up devised in the best traditions of the dime store paperback. This novelette is a prequel to the Murder on the Starship Australis series, itself part of the 10 Cent Universe – a genre-bending macrocosm.