The Double Dorothy

by Olivia Waite

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction
Pages: 112
Series: Dorothy Gentleman #3
Rating:

Synopsis:

Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple in the third entry of this cozy sci-fi mystery series, helmed by a formidable no-nonsense auntie of a detective.

As the Fairweather approaches the halfway point of its journey, Dorothy Gentleman may have reached the end of hers…

It’s been a long lifetime, and Dorothy’s current body is on its last legs. With a new terminal diagnosis from Medical, she’s counting the days until her next reembodiment. But then a young man with someone else’s face sits down and claims he is Dorothy’s next embodiment — someone has triggered the system early, using the memory-book Dorothy last updated over a month ago.

Meaning that according to the laws, when Dorothy dies this time — it will be permanent.

Now Dorothy and her doppelganger must sift through that last month of memories, looking for a secret someone’s trying to erase. And all the threads lead back to the very first murder that happened on the Fairweather, five hundred years ago. A case which remains unsolved — and in which Dorothy was a witness, not a detective. All while an old enemy finally dares to step out of the shadows…

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Olivia Waite’s The Double Dorothy is the third book of the series, and she’s certainly not happy to simply relax into things: this book introduces another new character, of a sort, because Dorothy’s been re-embodied while still alive — in the body of a young man — presumably because of something she’s learned since her last memory book update. The two Dorothys have got to work out what that is exactly, and also deal with the whole problem of having two of them alive at the same time.

In the process, we learn a little more about the embarkation of the ship, the first murder that occurred on board, and yes, finally, a significant amount more about Violet. All in all, it kept adding stuff to the world and was a really fun read.

I think there are some problems it didn’t really reckon with — look away if you don’t want any spoilers, though I’ll try to keep things general! — like the fact that “Uncle Dorothy” was going around in the body of another person, which is briefly alluded to as a logistical problem, but handwaved in the denouement, despite the fact that his fingerprints will be identical to those of the other version of that body. Or like the fact that Uncle Dorothy is also attracted to Violet, and has much more recent memories with her than with Celia… but also any gender dysphoria that they might feel is fairly handwaved, even though they reference finding it weird to be taller than usual.

I get that that isn’t super cosy, but given that gender and sex are a big deal to many, many people, it felt weird to have both Celia and Uncle Dorothy handwaving it, without a larger previous context of people just choosing to try out other bodies and everyone being blasé about it (unless it was there previously and I missed it?). It’d make a certain amount of sense, but then I’m a bit confused about Dorothy having been so thrown by Gloria’s body in the first book.

Anyway, I don’t want that to overshadow the fact that I really enjoyed this — I think I might’ve read it faster than either of the previous books! It was definitely enjoyable, and I’m curious what happens with “Uncle Dorothy” in future books.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)