A new installment in the New York Times best-selling award-winning Vorkosigan science fiction adventure series! Captain Ivan Vorpatril sometimes thinks that if not for his family he might have no troubles at all But he has the dubious fortune of the hyperactive Miles Vorkosigan as a cousin which has too-often led to his getting dragged into one of Miles' schemes with risk to life & limb
- & military career
- that Ivan doesn consider entirely fair Fortunately his current duty is on the planet Komarr as staff officer to Admiral Desplains far from both his cousin & his mother back on their homeworld of Barrayar It an easy assignment & nobody is shooting at him What could go wrong? Plenty it turns out when Byerly Vorrutyer an undercover agent for Imperial Security shows up on his doorstep & asks him to make the acquaintance of a young woman recently arrived on Komarr who seems to be in danger It is but a short step down the road of good intentions to the tangle of Ivan life in trouble with the Komarran authorities with his superiors & with the lethal figures hunting the mysterious but lovely Tej!