House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Slow-starting but enjoyable space opera. A suave Thin Man-type couple encounter different types of beings and intrigues while racing around the galaxy, everyone exuding the exact same painfully correct politeness until finally someone tries to wipe out their family. Now it's a whodunit with revenge and drama. Although I enjoyed the hard sci fi elements and the attempt to look at whether organics and mechanoid life forms (cylons) could ever really get along, I didn't buy the former and felt that the latter raised more questions than it answered (why were Cascade and Cadence so different from Hesperus; why did Hesperus and Purslane feel such affinity for each other?). But still nice.