A prime volume by best-selling author David Drake explores a future world where the police have cameras watching everybody, everywhere, 24-7... and introduces Lacey, the man who watches the watchmen. Then Drake segues to a very different, but no less foreboding future where the Fleet preserves the peace in the galaxy - in theory at least, and at a cost which is extremely high, and not just in money or even in lives. And much more, as the reader is taken on a guided tour of the many world of David Drake... a tour in which the luxuries are few, the gritty realism is ever-present, and the excitement never stops.