Sarek

A. C. Crispin published Sarek in 1994, and it takes place shortly after the events of the sixth Star Trek film. Its central figure is the Vulcan ambassador Sarek, father of Spock.

Sarek discovers that the leaders of the Federation and of its enemies have been subjected to mental influence from outside, and he sets out to find who is responsible. His suspicion falls on the Freelans, a species that has been part of the Federation for decades but which no outsider has ever actually seen, because of the way their culture is arranged.

Alongside that investigation runs his private grief. His human wife, Amanda Grayson, has died, and the novel is as much about a Vulcan coming to terms with that loss as about the plot against the Federation. A second storyline follows Peter Kirk, the nephew of James T. Kirk, who becomes caught up in what the enemy is doing without meaning to. The book is often named among the better Star Trek tie-in novels for the way it handles the ambassador's grief and the politics of the Federation at the same time.