Publisher's Synopsis
The Expanse meets Doctor Who in the first of Ardyce Year's Brother 5 series. Humans are abducted by aliens and transported across the universe. Motives unknown.
The only interruption to Timmy's alcohol-fueled, thirty-something life is Lucy, a homeless woman who waits outside his office every morning. Though she's never spoken to Timothy, and he complains that the vagrant is frightening awayhis customers, he always gives her a couple of dollars and a sandwich. One day she smiles at him and touches his arm in gratitude. Lucy never returns. Timothy searches for Lucy at a local shelter where he is approached by Jed-a self-styled private eye-and his mongrel companion, Diablo.
Jed has been investigating the "gone missing"- as the inhabitants of the street call the forgotten and the homeless- who have disappeared without a trace from the streets. Jed agrees to help Timothy locate Lucy. During their search a street gang attacks them. When a weapon not-from-our-planet almost kills Jed, his injuries force him to travel off our world to receive treatment. The Zephyr, an Earth-specific method of transportation, propels Jed and the unwitting Timothy to a space station located near Alpha Centauri.
Jed and Timothy's journey takes them across the universe to Brother 5, a genesis-created solar system of five planets. On Brother 5 they begin to suspect a conspiracy to kidnap hundreds of thousands of Humans from Earth. The investigation takes the two men to places Timothy could never imagine. The quest for the gone-missing begins. Will they find the unscrupulous beings and their accomplices in time to stop the abductions?
