Conor H. Carton

Trouble has a way of finding Shakbout Mansard. After an act of bureaucratic revenge goes spectacularly wrong, Shakbout is sent to Turnstop to untangle the Penhallagin Estate. Before he can even get started, he's pushed into another mission: finding Xeno Kallefrees, a missing lifeform no one else seems eager to protect. A stolen ship, a romance scam and a false will pull Shakbout and Tobel into a conspiracy stretching from the Inhabited Systems to Deep Space.
With old enemies closing in, Shakbout must uncover who is exploiting the most vulnerable lifeforms in the Systems... and why his role as Citizen Judge may be the key to something far greater than he imagined. A sharp, darkly humorous science fiction adventure, set in the Inhabited Systems universe, THE SCARLET SUNRISE is the third book in the Waifs & Strays series by Conor H. Carton.