A Talent for War is a science fiction mystery novel by American writer Jack McDevitt, the story of a search by Alex Benedict, the protagonist, to discover the nature of a mysterious project Alex's uncle had been working on when the interstellar passenger ship, on which his uncle was a passenger, was lost in space. This investigation leads deep into the history of a war between human civilization and a neighboring alien civilization and challenges the foundation mythos of the current human government. The book is the first in the Alex Benedict series. It is the only one told from Benedict’s point of view; the others are narrated by his pilot and assistant, Chase Kolpath. Source: Wikipedia (en)