Star Trek The Original Series: Shadows by Michael Jan Friedman
This 1994 novel sees the old coots sent to the world of Ssan were assassination is a holy ritual. McCoy’s ex wife is a diplomat involved in Ssan as is the lumpen oaf who is her new husband. He is there to be judged and disliked by readers. This is a decidedly uncosy take that has a strange blankness to it. Everyone is out of character and the plot is not fabulously original.
The whole assassin plot collapses under the weight of its own cod-philosophy and inarticulate suffering and cold anger. This is no complex exploration about the exacting nature of friendship. McCoy’s ex is a fastidious poseur and one can’t see why he would have been sexually enthralled by her or why reuniting with her would cause him very considerable distress.
McCoy’s raffish glamour is absent, Kirk is not a conciliator, the new husband has a lack of gratitude and this has no morbid thrill. This is not utterly atrocious but it is sick-making in places as flashbacks show McCoy’s existential despair due to base acts. His ex spews facetious platitudes, assassins have malign influence and this was a ghastly ghastly book.