Protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy. Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths—but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists. His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies. Not only must Dekkard handle political infighting, and continued assassination attempts, but it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists. Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find.

Udgivet af TOR 

Jr. Modesitt
Amerikansk forfatter som har skrevet "Recluce" bøgerne og dermed blevet en af de mest populære fantasy forfatter I branchen. Den første bog I serien hed "The Magic of Recluce" og blev så godt modtaget at der nu er 13 bøger I serien. Den kronologisk første er "The Fall of Angels". Modesit skriver også andre serier; "The Spellsong Cycle", "The Ecolitan Matter" og "The Forever Hero." Helt klart, en travl mand.