Gretchen Anderssen is a xeno-archeologist, who makes a living unearthing ancient artefacts left by long gone races. The most prized of these artefacts come from the First Sun era. These races were so far ahead of ours they can be considered almost Gods and even their remnants can be very, very dangerous indeed.

On her way to a routine dig, Gretchen finds herself suddenly diverted, placed in charge of a team sent to recover a survey team who've dropped out of contact in mysterious circumstances. Adding to her sense that this situation isn't quite right is the fact that an Imperial warship has been given over to the team for transportation.

On board is an Imperial nauallis - an Aztec aristocrat and sort of judge/priest charged with protecting the human Imperial Mexica Empire against First Sun threats to its existence.

Once the survey team has been found, Gretchen, Green Hummingbird – the nauallis - and Hadeishi, the ship's captain, must discover what caused the disappearance - and prevent it threatening the Empire.

There's nothing groundbreaking about this book but it does what it does well. It's a fast-paced little page-turner with a nice tight plot, some decent fight scenes and mostly good characterisation.

Mostly good because some of the supporting cast are like 2D ciphers but mainly because of the aliens. Magdalena, a key member of Gretchen's team, is a Hesht, a cat-like alien who just didn't feel very alien. Where there were differences it seemed like she was the comedy Jar Jar Binks character - not quite equal with the human crew. It seems odd that this is so considering how well the Imperial Mexica Empire stuff is thought out.

The tension between Hummingbird, an Aztec aristocrat, and Gretchen, a Swedish second-class citizen, felt right. The tension on the warship between the Aztec and the Japanese captain and the sense of brittle honour running through the ship was all really well done. So it was disappointing that the alien was so identikit.

There is a sequel 'House of Reeds' on the way but it doesn't need to be read, the book's got a proper ending and works fine on its own.

Not a perfect book, but a superior little page-turner all the same.

Rachel Broome