In Retrospect

In Retrospect is a good old-fashioned whodunit set in a compelling post-apocalyptic future.

Former elite operative Merit Rafi suffered during her imprisonment at the end of a devastating war but the ultimate torment is being forced to investigate a murder she would gladly have committed herself.

In the year 3324 the Rasakans have attacked the technologically superior Oku. The war is a stalemate until the Oku commander General Zane abruptly surrenders. Merit a staunch member of the Oku resistance fights on but she and her comrades are soon captured. An uneasy peace ensues but the Rasakans conspire to gain control of the prized Oku time-travel technology.

When Zane is murdered the Rasakans exert control over Merit the last person on Earth capable of Forensic Retrospection.

Ellen Larson's first story appeared in Yankee Magazine in 1971. More recently, she has sold stories to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (Barry Award finalist) and Big Pulp Magazine. She is the author of the NJ Mysteries (The Hatch and Brood of Time and Unfold the Evil), which are now being reprinted by Poisoned Pen Press, and a science fiction novella, The Measure of the Universe ("Engaging read for language lovers" -Booklist). Her current book is In Retrospect, a dystopian murder mystery ("Carefully crafted whodunit" -PW starred; "Cleverly structured mix of science fiction and mystery" -Booklist). Larson lived for seventeen years in Egypt, where she worked as a substantive editor for USAID and the World Bank in the field of agriculture and developed a love of cultures not her own. These days she lives in an off-grid cabin in upstate New York, enjoying the solitude.