Death's Head by Mel Keegan

Rating: ****

Reviewer: Meg

Death's Head is a rip roaring sci fi adventure about two friends who are both tough, dedicated, highly skilled law enforcement space troopers working for an agency named NARC to try to control a lethally addictive drug called Angel. They have kept their relationship platonic because it is too dangerous to be distracted by emotional involvement and they are both aware that the administration frowns on intimacy between officers. So for two years they keep themselves at arms length. Finally, Jerry Stone is badly injured in a drug bust and removed from the scene by a well meaning passerby. Kevin Jarrett sets out to search for his friend. Stone ends up in an unorthodox clinic in the hands of a telepathic healer. By the time Jarrett finds him, the only part of the cure left is a "mind meld" with someone willing to sacrifice his own individuality to save a friend.

The action is non-stop as the two men battle the crime syndicate, Death's Head, with ships and space age weapons back and forth across the spaceport, Chell. Mel Keegan is very good at romantic sex and the mind sharing raises it to a new level of sensuality. The characterization is very much the standard "starship trooper " stereotype, but that doesn't diminish the appeal of this book because it is about action and adventure and the chase and needs to "stay on target" as we get whip lashed from one end of Chell to the other. Often in science fiction, sex distracts from the theme or the action, but not in this book. Sex is another tool to be used in the fight because the telepathy and empathy engendered allow Stone and Jarrett to be more effective tacticians. They need all the help they can get against a really nasty drug lord and his well armed battalions of mercenaries.

There's no question that this book falls into the Space Opera science fiction sub-genre, because the pace is terrific. Keegan is careful though about supplying the technological details necessary to help us suspend disbelief and accept the future he's created. His descriptions of vehicles, armaments, and living conditions are well researched and thought out. He also explores sci fi themes such as alternative healing, designer drugs of the future, and the consequences of parapsychological effects on relationships.