The Star Trek franchise had a major reboot thanks to the most recent film, which carried the name of the series as its title, by J.J. Abrams. Jumping back in time as well as an alternate timeline, the famous characters that set the stage with the original series are introduced to viewers during their early years of training at Starfleet Academy.

Books have always played a major role with many Star Trek fans, and it seems like that will be continuing as their is now a series being published for teens (young adults) that really focuses on the characters in events that occurred prior to the film. This is the first book in the series.

While it is an alternate timeline, much is the same for the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Cadet James Kirk has easy connections with the ladies and a true talent for leadership. Leonard "Bones" McCoy is a curmudgeon (though, young for the time being) with a major talent in medicine. Spock is reserved, yet knowledgeable as a recent graduate of the Academy.

While Kirk is focusing on a series of team-based roleplaying exams to show that he is the best in this crop of cadets, a series of murders seems to be hitting San Francisco in the area around the academy. The victims seem to be missing organs, but their bodies show no signs of being cut to provide access to remove the organs. This would seem to parallel a series of murders that took place decades earlier and assigned to the "Doctor," and unidentified serial murder who was never caught.

Jim and Bones, as well as a few of their friends, are able to intervene when Uhura's Orion friend is attacked. They are able to stop the girl from being killed. This also provides them with some clues that will allow the cadet team to sort out what might be going on. Bones finds a mysterious, ashy substance that is really more than it seems to be. And some recordings that were captured by 911 calls captured some spoken words from the assailant that Uhura's talents in xenolingquistics might provide even more information.

It doesn't take long for McCoy and a team of Federation scientists to sort out that the ashy substance is not the result of smoke or fire, but are actually tiny nanobots that are able to slide through the cells in the body on the orders of the mysterious Doctor. The question is why the killer wants to do that and who he really is.

Barba has done a nice job of capturing the feel of the original characters, and the book is filled with sequences of action and interesting looks into the minds of familiar characters. In some ways, this helps explain a romantic relationship first explored in the recent film. The mystery also provides a surprising sneak peak into a major enemy that was originally introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation and further explored in Star Trek: Voyager. That element is presented by masterfully not made clear until the concluding pages of the book.

At times, the writing is overly simplistic, even when taking into account the fact that the book is written for a younger audience. In fact, the reading level is probably closer to the upper-elementary or middle school reading level rather than for older teens. This also explains why a group of cadets seem to play such an important role in the mystery when they are surrounded by experts from all fields with ties to Starfleet and the San Francisco Police Department. With that said, it is easy to let go of things like that and just sit back and enjoy the tale.

This is a pretty good premier title to the series. While it could have been better, it definitely has me looking forward to reading the next book in the series.