"Drake improves a classic military sf saga with fast action, wonderfully complex politics, and some of the most insightful characterization of his career." --Booklist

Daniel Leary is Cinnabar's most successful space captain; his friend, Lady Adele Mundy, is its most efficient spy--but they've got their hands full this time as they face:

• A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election--and still powerful enough to make her anger deadly.
• The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he's a god--and who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to.
• A world of slaves and escaped slaves, where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human.
• An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets--but which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive.

From palace to reeking jungle, from gunfights in grimy hangars to the flagship's bridge during a sprawling space battle, Leary and Mundy are in the thick of it again. Watch the galaxy explode--IN THE STORMY RED SKY