Golden Fleece (Robert Sawyer)

This short novel is Sawyer's first, a murder mystery aboard a spaceship on its way to explore a distant planet. The mystery is not a whodunit, because in the first few pages we witness the murder and realize it was committed by JASON, the artificial intelligence that runs the ship. The mystery is why the computer believed this murder was necessary and whether the others would figure it out. I confess that the story didn't work for me. The main human character had a past decorated with so many separate issues and traumas, none of which were actually related to the current situation, that it felt strained and overwritten. When the reason for the murder, and the ship's other unusual behaviors, is finally revealed, I don't buy it. I've read a few of Sawyer's works and had much the same reaction to them as well.