Two standalone science-fiction crime novellas bound together. In Mary Robinette Kowal’s Apprehension, a grieving grandmother named Bonnyjean — decades ago a special-forces operative, now slowed by a bad hip — takes her family to the planet where she once served. When her young grandson is kidnapped by people convinced she carries a dead agent’s secret, she refuses to let age or injury stop her from getting him back. The pairing, Sam J. Miller’s Red Star Hustle, is a caper of its own; only Kowal’s half centers an older woman, but her late-life grit earns the shelf space.
