Quid Pro Quo by Manna Francis (Science fiction, mystery, short story collection)

This collection of one novella and five short stories is the sequel to Mind Fuck. As I mentioned in that review, almost the entire series is available online, but the print versions are much nicer.

Quid Pro Quo

The book begins with a novella which isn’t yet available online–it was written specifically for the print release, so that loyal fans of the online version would get a little something new as incentive for buying the book.

Liz Carey, a Specialist Investigator for I&I’s Corporate Fraud Department requests Toreth’s help with a joint CF/General Criminal investigation into a corporate kidnapping case. The kidnapping, rape, and dismemberment of 17-year-old Sofie Kenward would ordinarily be a job for the civilian police, rather than the Investigation & Interrogation division, but the possibility of corporate sabotage or fraud make it I&I’s business.

The team’s best lead seems to be a connection to the sensational kidnapping of Louise Selman fifteen years earlier, but her father wants the case buried–and when one of the Selmans, of Selman-Sterntech, one of the Administration’s more influential corporations, wants something buried, it’s more than an investigator’s job is worth to go digging.

“Quid Pro Quo” is another complex, twisty mystery, and quite satisfying in that respect. Surprisingly Warrick, the series’s other protagonists and Toreth’s regular lover, doesn’t appear in this novella beyond the first chapter. It makes sense, because so early in their relationship, when they haven’t even moved beyond their Friday night assignations, there’s no reason for Toreth to discuss his work or for Warrick to become involved in his cases the way he occasionally does later. I actually found the mystery so interesting that I didn’t even notice Warrick’s absence until the story was over.

Friday

This is quite a short piece, only eight pages long. A few months after “Quid Pro Quo”, Warrick thinks about some of the changes in his life since he’s been–involved–with Toreth. Looking forward to leaving SimTech for one of their regular Friday meetings, he has one last meeting with Cele, an old friend of his sister’s…and she’s sure to notice the fading bruises on his face.

“Friday” is one of the series’s first attempts to answer a recurring question: how can someone like Warrick, a fairly decent, ordinary human being, involve himself with someone like Toreth, a sociopath and professional torturer? Warrick will eventually come up with some answers, later on in the series.

Pancakes

Definitely no mysteries in this short story: Pancakes is all about relationships. Mainly, Toreth’s relationship (such as it is) with Warrick, but also some nice scenes between Toreth and the inestimable Sara, his admin (i.e. his secretary/personal assistant.) Toreth meets Warrick’s sister, Dillian, and in one of the funniest scenes from the series, Toreth meets Sara’s new cat.

For pretty much the first time since Mind Fuck, Warrick is forced to confront what Toreth does for a living, which doesn’t make him happy.

Surprises

Toreth proves his ability to maintain a semi-permanent relationship while taking commitment-phobia to new extremes when he has Sara help him pick out a gift for Warrick:

“Buy him something kitchen-y, then.”

Immediately he regretted telling her about his sudden gift-giving impulse, but it was much too late. Something kitchen-y. Something nice and domestic. For a moment he actually felt sick, the overly sweet smell of the melting chocolate catching at the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said, when the feeling passed.

Once again, no investigation. That’s not a complaint–as good a mystery writer as she’s proved herself to be, Francis is so good at writing complex, dysfunctional relationships that her short stories never feel like there’s anything lacking.

There are a lot of sex scenes, which usually aren’t my cup of tea. My automatic, completely involuntary reaction to graphic sex in a story is usually to skim rapidly through it–not because they make me uncomfortable, but because they’re almost always boring. Most of the time I don’t even notice I’m doing it. In The Adminstration, though, I really don’t mind them; this is one author who manages to make graphic bondage & donmination sex scenes interesting and funny, using them to explore characters and their relationships without putting me to sleep with tedious detail.

Family

For some reason, I’d forgotten how much I love this story. Toreth’s first meeting with Warrick’s family pretty much defines uncomfortable, with side orders of horror and hilarity. And the ending was so unexpected the first time I read, but so perfect, and it still makes me smile.

Family, besides being a really good character-driven short story, sets up a fair amount of background information that becomes important in some of the later novels.

Mirror, Mirror

This author really does have a way with sex scenes. Toreth just has so much fun setting up elaborate scenes for Warrick that I have fun reading about it. And the last line is just perfect.

It’s hard for me to evaluate this collection as a whole, because I’ve read all but the first story many times before, but I get the sense that it would work just as well for a first-time reader as it did for me. There’s a very nice progression in Toreth and Warrick’s relationship through the book, mirroring the ever-greater depth of characterization as the reader gets to know them better. The last two stories, Family Values and the very short Mirror, Mirror work well together to bring the collection to a close while leaving some interesting avenues for later stories.

This book won’t really make much sense without some of the background information from Mind Fuck, and it also contains spoilers for that novel, so the two should definitely be read in order. Quid Pro Quo is available to order from Casperian Books and from other major online booksellers like Amazon.

Except for the novella “Quid Pro Quo”, all the stories from this collection are available online (including “Unlucky Break“, the short story which became the first chapter of “Quid Pro Quo”).

Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Manna Francis, R.I.P. III, short story collection, The Administration