Name: A Talent for War
ISBN: 9780441012176

Jack McDevitt

When he discovers information that suggests a legendary space fighter may have ties to the alien that he destroyed, Alex ventures into the core of the alien galaxy to learn the truth.

A Talent for War

4.5 stars. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's certainly mine. It had all my favorite things: evocative descriptions of alien planets, space archaeology, mysteries, library research, ancient space battles, intelligent analysis of how public opinion is swayed and changes, and characters I cared about. 

It sometimes got a bit too muddled and complicated for my taste (had to rewind the audio and keep track of all names and places mentioned in order not to get lost), and sometimes it felt very "80s", but I didn't really mind that. 

Its particular strengths (for me) were the sleuthing, the labyrinthine mystery being uncovered, and how smart it was when thinking about war, history-writing and public opinion.

I'm rounding down from 4.5 because you need to be the kind of person who both enjoys reading kind of slow, character-focused mysteries that involve a lot of library research and trying to make sense of and connect various old documents and witness accounts, *and* the kind of person who likes tense action scenes to really enjoy this. In addition, this was very smart and the author's thoughts on wars and culture clashes (here with an alien species) were really insightful, so it grated a little bit when occasionally, it seemed as if the secondary character was being particularly dense. I've heard this improves in future books, so I'm really looking forward to them.