Swann takes the classic spy plot of an agent on the run from their employer and creates a very effective second entry in his moreau series. For the unitiated, moreaus are human/animal genetic chimeras designed for military use. In this world, after the Pan-Asiatic War ended, many of them ended up as refugees in the United States. However, Swann does a good enough job explaining the events of the earlier novel, Forests of the Night, that you don't absolutely need to read the earlier novel to enjoy this book.

Moreaus and their politics show up here in significant ways, but the spy on the run, Evi Isham, is a "frank" as in frankenstein. In her case, her genome was modified by the Japanese, she was bred for the Jordanians, liberated by the Israelis, and, as a refugee after Israel's destruction, compelled to work for the US government.

Swann not only works out the implications and motivations behind the intrigue of the earlier novel - which takes place six years earlier and in which Isham shows up as a minor character - but greatly expands the geopolitical and technological background of his world. And it's all seamlessly delivered in a breakneck plot that takes place over a few days, days in which Evi not only has to figure out just how many conspiracies are gunning for her but why.

And it's not just geopolitical extrapolation Swann does. For those interested in the more intimate aspects of human/moreau interaction partially covered in the earlier novel, Swann has a scene in a Times Square porn theatre which extrapolates that trend too.

The only flaw in this book is too sketchy of motivations for a character at novel's end, but the novel is otherwise a very strong science fiction spy story which I liked even more than the first book in the series. ( )