ISBN 0-441-00262-5 (US pbk)

"Major Dyle Holloway is Earth's toughest cop. And when a series of deadly terrorist attacks sweep the planet Tennyson, he and his team are sent to break the case wide open. Anyone could be responsible, from the lowest commoner to the highest member of the government.

"Holloway arrives carrying the haunting guilt of the one case he never solved: the brutal murder of his wife. His obsession with that failure threatens the entire operation, as he and his team are swirled deeper and deeper into a vortex of paranoia, betrayal, and darkest conspiracy.

"Only Beagle, an android with the mind of a dead investigative genius, knows the real truth... about both cases..." [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1995]

"Told in a creamy-smooth first person. Anthony's meteoric rise to the novelistic front ranks is thoroughly deserved." -- (in Kirkus Reviews ).

"Anthony transforms a mini-technothriller into a sensitive exploration of human motivation." -- (in Library Journal ).

"Fine style, cool insights, and sudden warmth of humanity." -- (in Locus ).

"Patricia Anthony's books are charting new territory. In this one we are witnesses to a murder investigation on another planet, theocratic in government. A team of Earth's finest are dispatched to solve some terrorist activity. But there's more to this case than apprehending some mere malcontents. Identity is at issue here. Our allegiance to Earth is brought under scrutiny. And once again we are forced to question who is manipulating whom." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 5 March 1996).

Recommended.