I read The Mote In Gods Eye back in 2011, and didn't bother to write a review, but I remembered it as a slow investigation of the very strange alien culture of the Moties, and the fear of war to the knife between humanity and desperately poor, but fast-breeding aliens with technology just a hair more efficient than the humans. Out of fear, humanity imposed a quarantine on the Mote system, enforced by imperial blockade.

The Gripping Hand picks up 25 years after Mote, with Renner and Bury secret agents for the Empire, trying to smoke out traitors and possible leaks through the blockade. They find that a new FTL point to the Mote system is opening now, as opposed to millions of years in the future. It's to our heroes, along with a new generation of Blaines and a nosy reporter, to save the day by cutting a deal with the Moties involving a human-developed method of birth control.

There's political maneuvering and space battles, but I didn't much care for the story. Characterization has never been Niven and Pournelle's strong suit, and I found them particularly flat this time around. The tension is primarily tactical; how do we get the Moties to accept our negotiated solution, rather than the strategic tension of "who are these aliens?" from the first book. Decent, but not great.