Moonfall

I'm a Jack McDevitt fan. That said, this is one of his earliest effiorts, and it reads like it. He is still searching for a consistent style, and is writing in the near future. That is always harder to do; we are now past the date of the novel, and none of the things he wrote about happened. It is still a page-turner, but it demands much more suspension of disbelief. For instance, a moon station exists, and it has malls and restaurants. As someone pointed out, every bit of that would have had to be lifted out of the gravity well. Without a space elevator, off-planet sites will be much more spartan, basics only.

I did like the characters, and making a politician your protagonist is a courageous move. When this was written, politicians enjoyed somewhat higher respect, but even then, they were seen as dealers, not idealists.