A Talent for War

A Talent for War is a science fiction mystery novel by American writer Jack McDevitt, the story of a search by Alex Benedict, the protagonist, to discover the nature of a mysterious project Alex's uncle had been working on when the interstellar passenger ship, on which his uncle was a passenger, was lost in space. This investigation leads deep into the history of a war between human civilization and a neighboring alien civilization and challenges the foundation mythos of the current human government.