Fear of strangers

the long version

Instead of the welcome they'd expected, the returning crew of the first interstellar spaceship was kept in space, imprisoned in their craft - in quarantine, as carriers of a deadly alien disease. When the prisoners escaped, the worried authorities hired Earth's top detective, Martin Slade, to track them down, little suspecting that Slade had his own personal agenda. Slade's search for the missing crew spans millions of miles of space, following a trail of hideous deaths.