Stranglers' Moon is a 1976 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel written by Stephen Goldin

Stephen Goldin

Stephen Charles Goldin is an American science fiction and fantasy author.-Biography:Goldin was born in in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

, the second book in the Family D'Alembert

Family D'Alembert

The Family D'Alembert series is a set of science fiction novels by Stephen Goldin, the first of which was expanded from a novella by E. E. "Doc" Smith.-Plot:...

 series, the first of which was expanded by Goldin from a novella by E.E. “Doc” Smith

E. E. Smith

Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., also, E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and Ted was a food engineer and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others...

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Plot introduction

This is the second in a series of ten Family D'Alembert novels. Set in a future where humankind has expanded to the stars but reverted to an old-style feudal system of government in an advanced technological setting, all known planets and space are ruled by an Earth based Empire.

Plot summary

Jules and Yvette D'Alembert are a brother and sister team of aerialists in the D'Alembert family Circus of the Empire. But they are also legendary agents "Wombat" and "Periwinkle" in SOTE, "The Service of The Empire", the imperial intelligence agency, sent to investigate the disappearance of a planetary economist and his wife on a moon devoted to recreation: seemingly a vacationers' paradise...

The plot is based in part on Thuggee

Thuggee

Thuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...

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