Donald Maass Literary Agency

Library Journal: Having gathered a lot of pertinent information to take down GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot returns to its place of origin to help Dr. Mensah, who started this quest. However, with a special security team on its tail, Murderbot soon discovers that GrayCris is well on its way to covering its tracks.

Mensah has been accused of corporate espionage and is being held at another station. Realizing Mensah’s situation is a result of its own actions, Murderbot must help its former owner/friend escape, along with the rest of the Preservation team, even if it means this SecUnit will finally get caught. Coming full circle from the beginning of its journey to awareness, Murderbot once again works to save the fragile humans and discovers that trying to avoid humanity is one sure way to get caught in the midst of it.

VERDICT: The last of Hugo Award winner Wells’s “Murderbot Diaries” (after Rogue Protocol) brings the concept of an AI’s dealing with humanity—for better and worse—to a sarcastic, sharp, thrilling conclusion.

Booklist: Following up on their successful collaboration in I AM PRINCESS X (2016), Priest and O’Connor neatly weave together the history of comic books and contemporary concerns about gentrification in this eerie ghost story set in a ramshackle house that’s as much a character as the people living in it.

Denise, her mom, and stepdad have just moved into an nearly destroyed, once-beautiful house in New Orleans, and almost right away, Denise starts noticing odd things. First, they’re harmless, if creepy, but later, unexplained, dangerous accidents happen as they renovate the house. But the comic book manuscript Denise finds carefully hidden in the attic (pages of which appear throughout the novel) is the key to source of the poltergeists. Meanwhile, Denise’s neighbors are uneasy about outsiders capitalizing on cheap property in New Orleans, and Priest does a great job of skillfully including the important conversations Denise and her family have with their new community.

At its heart, though, this is a ghost story, and Priest excels at building palpable atmosphere: Denise’s parents’ anxiety about their shoestring budget, the sweltering New Orleans summer heat, the disrepair of the house (“soggy plaster fell from the studs like wet cake”), and the increasingly terrifying haunting. Dynamic characters and a surprising mystery round out this sharp, satisfying, and engrossingly spooky story.

Booklist: After finding evidence proving that the GrayCris Corporation engaged in illegal activities, Murderbot heads out to hand the case over to Dr. Mensah, its former owner. But Dr. Mensah has disappeared, and Murderbot must track her down—straight into the heart of enemy territory.

Saving its mentor and taking down GrayCris are just the beginning of its challenges—Murderbot also has to figure out who it is, where it fits in society, and just how it is supposed to relate to all these people. The fourth installment of Wells’ Murderbot Diaries (after Rogue Protocol, 2018) will satisfy readers’ hopes for this series finale. It follows the same basic structural formula as its predecessors, so it has all the action fans expect. Exit Strategy tones down the humor a bit but adds depth to Murderbot’s introspection as it wrestles with questions of identity that it has been avoiding, and the story leaves it to decide its own future.

Everything comes full circle while remaining appropriately open ended. Wells gives us a worthy conclusion to one of the best series in recent memory.

Tor.com: Wells’ characterisation is pitch-perfect. Murderbot’s voice is darkly—and frequently not-so-darkly—funny, and Murderbot itself is a deeply appealing character. Other characters, as is appropriate for a writer of Wells’ talents, feel like fully formed individuals with lives and goals of their own, despite how little time the reader spends in their company. The pacing is excellent, tension mounting to an explosive conclusion, and like all of Wells’ work, it has atmosphere in spades.

And thematically, it’s about what it means to be human, and the nature of responsibility.

I really enjoyed this installment of the adventures of Murderbot. I’m looking forward to Exit Strategy, the next novella, and to the recently-announced forthcoming Murderbot novel. The world needs more Murderbot, because Murderbot is delightful.