Two
Book 1 of the Benignitas series
A Christian first contact novel. Ten explorers, a world that looks like Earth, a murderer among them, and no way home.
Fifty-seven light-years from Earth, one man's new understanding of physics has opened a door onto a world nobody expected to find. Commander David Decker leads a team of ten through it — sent to explore a planet that might be compatible with human life, and to find out whether we are alone in the universe.
What they find is not what they expected. The mystery isn't how life there could be so different from Earth's — it's how it could be so much the same. Within days, one of the team dies under circumstances that leave no doubt: murder, not accident.
Stranded without communication, resupply, or any way home, Decker must unify his hastily assembled group while a killer remains among them and winter approaches.
Two pairs hard science fiction — grounded in genuine biology and physics — with a locked-circle murder mystery, and explores questions of design and evolution through honest debate, in a clean read free from profanity, graphic content, and cynicism.
What if the greatest danger was never the unknown waiting on an alien world, but the evil we carried with us?
Two is the first book in the Benignitas series, followed by the novella Forager and the novel Forerunner, though it stands complete on its own.