The Third Lynx

This cover is my favorite of the whole series. The first volume I bought was a reprint in ebook form; it has a stylized cover with a man carrying an MP5K, or something much like it. It could easily be the cover for a Tom Clancy-style espionage action book. It isn't bad, but I don't love it as much as I do Mark Zug's cover art for The Third Lynx.

Frank Compton looks wily and self-assured here. I feel like Zug nailed his personality. Bayta, his assistant and liaison with the Spiders who run the interstellar Quadrail service, looks pensive, but nonetheless determined. Rarely do I see a book's characters captured so well in a single image. The Quadrail station itself even gets a nod, at once otherworldly and familiar.

Mark Zug has a website show more you should check out, he does a lot of art in this style.

Back to Zahn's work, The Third Lynx follows closely on the heels of Night Train to Rigel. Even down to how Frank immediately finds himself in the company of recently murdered man who wanted to send him on a quest. The way in which Zahn departs from the pattern is that he subtly ratchets up the stakes, and the tension.

The first time Frank found a dead man, he rifled through his pockets, found a ticket with his own face on it, and scooted off without getting identified. This time, a former colleague with an axe to grind spots Frank and raises the kind of fuss that isn't helpful to a railroad detective attempting to be low-key.

Frank of course uses his Poirot-like investigative skills to unravel the mystery of the dead man and his connection to the eponymous statue, which is not really a Maltese Falcon reference since it turns out to not be a MacGuffin. What I like most about Frank Compton is that his real superpower in the Quadrail dominated galaxy is that he is a barracks lawyer, always using the many bureaucratic regulations of a post-modern galaxy as his true weapons. Every one of the cultures Zahn created to populate his fictional universe has both its own typical personality, and a need to implement mechanisms of social and legal regulation. Frank is a master of arbitrage between the legal systems of different cultures, and he'll use any leverage he can get.

Anonymity was a useful tool for Frank, but that is the first thing he loses in The Third Lynx. This makes the games he plays more interesting, because he needs to attempt misdirection in plain sight. And his opponent is doing the same thing, at the same time, which you sometimes can only see in retrospect. It isn't just Frank that figures it all out at the end. show less

I didn't read the first book of this series, and I'm not likely to go back and pick it up now either.

It's a light spy on the train novel, with the train moved to outerspace for variety. The aliens are your standard odd human in funny skin variety, and the bad guys mildly evil cardboard.

The continuous, repetative moment the main character miraculously figures out the next puzzle ten pages ahead of everybody else gets old and contrived way too quickly for me.

The twist on the love interest thread might have been the only thing that saved this from a 2 for me.

I'd only bother if you read something else in the series already and liked it. Me, I'm getting off at the next stop.

I enjoyed this thoroughly. Full of tension and suspense like its' predecessor, Lynx finds Frank Compton chasing another mystery involving the Modhri group mind, the Spiders and the Chahwyn. In the midst of it, he falls in love with the woman he's struggling to protect, comes into conflict with a federal agent, and finds his life once again on the line.These books are Timothy Zahn at his best: fast-paced action, political intrigue, well drawn characters, and interesting science. Here he's created a fascinating world full of interesting humans and interesting aliens.I'd recommend this to anyone who likes good space opera. The uniqueness is no laser gun fights and no space battles. These are replaced by battles of the mind, different show more dangerous weapons, and a constant running to and from danger. It's a thoroughly enjoyable ride. show less

This was a re-read for me. I am re-reading books 1-4 in preparation for reading the 5th and final book in the series.

I have really enjoyed most Timothy Zahn books I have read. They tend to be fast paced and constantly twisting. Yet, this book really frustrated me. Even though this story starts with a bang, I still struggled to get into the story.

There were several twists and turns and you never really knew which way the story was going. However, here it felt as though the twists and turns were thrown in just for the sake of twisting and turning. And, there was just so much of it, I got motion sickness! Ok, not really, but even when the book was completed, I wasn't really sure which twist was the right turn.

In my opinion, Mr. Zahn show more writes better than this. show less

A sequel to Night Train to Rigel, this book is another train mystery/action book that turns pages quickly. A little bit too proud of its ability to play games with the reader, it can be a little unclear as to what exactly is going on, and as always, Timothy Zahn likes to suggest that the character's motivations are more complex than what they actually are.

It's a nice sequel, though, and while it's not a life changing book, that's not always a bad thing. Not quite as good as the first one, though.

This book was randomly sent to me by my library for the blind. So i figured, what the hay, I'll read it. What a nice discovery. There was enough plot to keep things moving between a LOT of action. I now want to read the others in the series.

Basically The Maltese Falcon in space, it was a fast-moving noir-ish mystery -- with aliens! Good fun.