Lije Bailey and Daneel Olivaw have been called up yet again in The Robots of Dawn to solve a murder on another world. This time, the suspect is Daneel's own creator, and the victim is the second humaniform robot he created. The political implications of the destruction of this robot are serious, not only for Dr. Han Fastolfe, the roboticist who created Daneel, but also for Earth.

The case occurs on Aurora, where Gladia from Solaria (The Naked Sun) has gone to live a life where she can interact with other people without shame. 

You have to love Asimov's style to enjoy this novel. In other words, there's lots of talk and explanations of technology. Fortunately, I enjoy that tremendously.

Bailey's trip to Solaria inspired him to start working toward finding people on Earth who would like to colonize other planets. He's trying to train them to tolerate the outdoors and get permission to settle a new world. But the established Spacer worlds don't want to let Earthmen do that, yet don't feel comfortable settling new worlds themselves either.

Bailey's ability to solve this mystery will determine who gets to continue exploration of the galaxy. The Spacer worlds have to power to keep Earthmen on Earth if they so choose. Fastolfe supports the idea, but other roboticists on his world oppose the idea, and want to use his humaniform robots instead. They're using the accusation that he maliciously destroyed his second humaniform robot and are trying to ruin his political influence.