The Cause of Death — Roger MacBride Allen

They are the elite agents of interstellar investigation. Their mission: solve off-Earth crimes and protect humanity's starside interests. They are the men and women of the Bureau of Special Investigations -- BSI -- and their cases are literally out of this world.

The message was garbled, but it appeared to be a simple enough request: escort a human prisoner convicted of murder back to Earth for punishment. But when BSI agents Jamie Mendez and Hannah Wolfson arrive on a planet settled by the enigmatic Pavlat, it seems that everyone is determined to kill them before they can complete their mission -- or even find out what it is. And on a planet where murder is a time-honored tradition, Death is a cause everyone believes in. Mendez and Wolfson must find a way to untangle the web of Pavlavian intrigue obscuring the case and sort out what's really going on. But there's far more than just one man's life at stake -- and soon they'll have a fresh murder to solve....