Our beleaguered hero starts off trying his best to play the part of "thing that can't be found" as he chills beachside in some far corner of the universe, avoiding being found by a tyrannical Alliance that he's managed to attract unwanted attention from, by stealing from them and shutting down black site research they were conducting; that sort of thing. The sort of thing that forms a long-lasting manhunt and heightened alert. The kind of trouble that makes becoming a beach bum in some dark corner of the universe start to make sense.
Fergus was doing his best to enjoy his permanent vacation, when his friend, Qai, who also was quite good at finding things... found him. She comes and collects him from the planet, needing him to help her save her friend, which he readily does. In a typical Fergus Ferguson odd-luck sort of way, he ends up joining a (space) pirate crew under the pseudonym "Vetch" to help the dread pirate Bas Belos find his sister, Bel Belos, who disappeared years ago while fleeing that same Alliance.
Fergus is quite handy and very skilled at finding things, learning things and figuring things out and soon finds a huge clue as to what might have happened to Bel's ship, but it all points to theoretical science and very unstable - and dangerous - places from where one could make a FTL jump. At the other end of that jump, they'll discover what happened to... well, a lot of poor souls. Of course, it will be up to our man Fergus to save the universe and to play diplomat, while he's at it. Of course, not without a bit of cultivation by the mysterious and always curious alien race, the Asiig... and the help of Fergus's electrical powers they gave him.
This installation somehow managed to put Fergus on a pirate crew while still making him feel very much like Fergus Ferguson. That's not to say that Fergus is an unchanging, predictable character; over his sabbatical, he's gotten much better control over his electrical powers. Much, much better control. Which is good, because this adventure is going to require him to be at the top of his game.
The end of the book was satisfying, tying things up nicely enough, but only hinting at what Fergus might do next. Of course, what he plans to do and where he actually ends up are rarely the same thing. Still, while this story wraps nicely, I don't see it as needing to be the end of the series, with nowhere left to go. That's why I'm troubled by Suzanne's statement in the Acknowledgements, "Writing Fergus has been a pleasure, and even as this series comes to a close..." Wait. What? Why? What exactly does "as this series comes to a close" mean, here? Is this the last book? Is there just one more to come? I'm hoping Ghostdrift isn't the last book in the series. I would still recommend the series if it were, but come on... I need at least one more book...
