I am well behind on reviewing stuff and books are piling up on my Return To Library pile so these will be brief.

A young woman from a family which features jockeying for power the way some families feature breakfasts makes a daring and rather complicated play by arranging for the release of a prisoner from a prison planet no-one's ever supposed to have escaped from. Not actually being a bad person herself, things get immediately complicated when the ex-prisoner none only has a mind of their own, but also even denies being the ex-prisoner she's looking for. Meanwhile, a large conference of alien races is about to take place, a galaxy-level power play, and one set of aliens in particular is taking a discomfiting interest in the ship she's hired to take her home, so much of an interest, in fact, that they follow her all the way back to her planet.

Trying to explain the plot, I suddenly realise how insanely complicated it is, layers and layers of politics and power and relationships, yet the book itself never seems overwrought or bogged down, flowing along nicely, lightly, even breezily, all of which is quite deceptive. There's a murder mystery, an attempted governmental overthrow, and a heist all fitted in like puzzle pieces slotting together and it all reads brilliantly and entertainingly.