Naval Officer Jack Samson thought a posting to the frontier of human inhabited space was the death blow to his career. He couldn’t have been more wrong. A routine inspection of a small merchant vessel leads to devastating loss and the discovery of strange, fascinating objects. As astonishing discoveries unfold, a mysterious and hostile ship proves that Samson has a competitor in unlocking the secrets of an ancient alien civilisation, and that humanity might not be alone in the galaxy after all.
This is one of those rare times that Amazon Kindle recommends something to me that ends up being good. Written by Duncan M. Hamilton, this appears to be his first science fiction book. The antagonist, Jack Samson, and his crewmates make for an interesting hodgepodge of characters as they are thrust in a series of crisis. The book bears some similarities to the TV show Firefly. Primarily that you are on the edge of space colonization and things are a lot more cowboy than lawful. Although Jack being part of the Terran Union places him on the other side of where we would often see the characters from that show. The major plot components are completely different.