Fugitive Telemetry is basically ‘Murderbot does a murder mystery in a cop-outside expert tv episode’, with Murderbot being the outside expert, Station Security represented mostly by Indah who doesn’t want/trust the outsider, and a bit of a locked-door mystery as to who the dead person is, how and why they were killed all unknown.
Besides the usual entertaining Murderbot snarkiness, there is a little bit of world building on Preservation Station, more in the setting sense and a little bit of cultural background. There also seemed to be more of Murderbot communicating on secure channels with one person to say one thing, while at the same time saying something slightly or very different to whoever (probably Indah) us physically in front of them.
In some ways the plot is a bit predictable in that Indah and Murderbot don’t get along at all at first, but gradually figure out a way to work together to solve the mystery. An interesting little twist is that maybe two-thirds of the way through, Muderbot has to admit openly and not just to themself that they might have been wrong about a potential solution which I don’t remember happening before at least not to this extent; it ‘humanizes’ (sorry, Murderbot, but it’s true) Murderbot a little further. There’s also a bit of a twist in the eventual reveal of the whodunit, but it’s set up in a mildly cliché but still entertaining way with the “I know who did it” at the end of a chapter and then not getting to said individual until several pages later. The one who did it also fits a bit of a murder-mystery villain stereotype as well given that it fits into one of the three standards solutions: the obvious suspect did it, the minor character you’re not supposed to notice did it, or the murderer is someone up until the reveal entirely unknown. Even here though there’s a slight tweak in the standard.
There’s even a little bit of an outside theme of agency and freedom, both human and bot, which is actually rather fitting since the title character is a bit of both. The part about trying to save a bunch of people who happen to be connected to the dead person relates to this as does Murderbot’s interactions with a handful of the other bots on the station.
Overall, this is another enjoyable entry in the Murderbot Diaries series, even if it is a bit of a prequel as it is temporally set somewhere towards the end of All Systems Red.