David Starr, Space Ranger, by Isaac Asimov

It's a Boys Own Adventure IN SPACE! It's.....not my usual kind of book. But it was kind of riveting? The characters are one-dimensional, the narrative is infodumpy, the plot is silly, but it was still a fun read. I'm probably gonna read the rest of the series. Or at least the next book.

(Thinking about it, it's kind of a parallel to Georgette Heyer's novels: equally shallow and variously problematic, but one very TRADITIONALLY MASCULINE and the other very TRADITIONALLY FEMININE for the era in which these authors were writing. They're two sides of the same coin.)

The plot of David Starr, Space Ranger goes as follows. David Starr was orphaned at a young age, then raised by two close family friends he knows as uncles. David grows up to be JUST LIKE HIS FATHER except SMARTER. David's sent off by his uncles (who have high political positions) on a mission to Mars to discover the cause of MYSTERIOUS POISONINGS occurring throughout the solar system!

David is MACHO and CLEVER and immediately manages to get himself an undercover position as a farmboy ( and I guess the rest of this is spoilers? )