The Hound Bridget ban has vanished and the Kennel (the mysterious superspy agency) has given up looking for her. But her daughter, the harper Mearana, has not, and she has convinced the scarred man, Donovan, to aid in her search. But Donovan’s mind has been shattered by Those of Name, the rulers of the Confederacy, and no fewer than seven quarreling personalities now inhabit his skull. How can he hope to see Mearana safely through her quest? Together, they follow Bridget ban’s trail to the raw worlds of the frontier, edging ever closer to the de-civilized and barbarian planets of the Wild. Along the way, they encounter evidence that they too are being followed—by a deadly agent of Those of Name.From BooklistOn the harper Mearana’s home planet, up Jim River is a saying indicating a journey ever further into danger and the unknown. Mearana’s mother, Bridget ban, has disappeared on mysterious business. Even the Kennel, her employer and one of the galaxy’s two sources of secret agents, didn’t know what she was looking for or where she went. Mearana is determined, though, to discover her mother’s fate. She manages to convince the scarred man, the Fudir, who was once Donovan but became six or seven personalities after a botched experiment by Those of Name, to join her out of a sense of nostalgia. The worlds inhabited by these people are sufficient reason to read the novel. The extrapolations of linguistic drift and remnants of ancient history that Flynn conjures constitute a fascinating story in themselves. Adding to them a tense and thrilling search from the bar on Jehovah to the very Wild itself, through strange cultures and dangerous ports, just makes the book all the more engaging