The fourth novel in the acclaimed Alex Benedict series from the multi-award winning SF master Jack McDevitt.

'Jack McDevitt is that splendid rarity, a writer who is a storyteller first and a science fiction writer second. In his ability to absolutely rivet the reader, it seems to me that he is the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke' Stephen King

Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene, who then voluntarily has her memory erased. She has no memory of her past life, or even of her plea for assistance. But she has transferred an enormous sum of money to Alex, also without explanation.

The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds. There Alex and his pilot companion, Chase Kolpath, will uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval, a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden, though the price of that silence is unimaginable.

"Why read Jack McDevitt? The question should be: Who among us is such a slow pony that s/he isn't reading McDevitt" - Harlan Ellison

"No one writing today is better than McDevitt at combining galaxy-spanning adventure with the genuine novel of ideas" - Washington Post Book World

"Highly, highly recommended" - Fantasy Book Critic