Dark State is the second book in a thrilling series - set in the same world as Charles Stross' Merchant Princes series. This book follows Empire Games.

In the near-future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers - in two different timelines - is imminent. One is in the midst of its first technological revolution and the other is a hi-tech police state. And both have the capacity to wreak all-out destruction.

In Commissioner Miriam Burgeson’s timeline, one of her top agents is working on the defection of a major political player. If they can pull this off, their version of America might just avert civil war. Meanwhile, the Commissioner's adopted daughter and newly-minted spy, Rita, watches and waits in the rival timeline, until a sleeper cell is activated which threatens to unravel everything.