For David James Hollingsworth, the sunshine of our lives.

My deepest thanks, as always, to Robert R. Hollingsworth, military historian and battle choreographer (whose wonderful archery post graces the cover) and to his lovely wife Susan Collingwood, whose discerning eye keeps me on track. Thanks to them, as well, for the loan of their libraries and their highly limited time! I owe special thanks to Susan Gudmundsen, for climbing the immensely steep slope of Cadbury Hill, just to take photos for me. The weather was raw and thoroughly disagreeable, but up she went, into the wet clouds, to get my 360-degree panorama, which illuminated the whole climactic ending of the novel. And another special thank-you to Patricia Grohowski, for her tireless cheerleading, for pointing me in the direction of that wonderful little shop where I found the books on Glastonbury Tor, for lending me half her fascinating library, and for always finding a way to make me smile, in the midst of all the howling. I couldn't have done it without them!

—Linda Evans

The election should have made things better.

Would have, in fact, if held virtually anywhere else in the world. But this was Belfast, the blazing heart of Northern Ireland, where sanity was a concept seriously out of fashion. With the election only twenty-four hours old, the Irish "Troubles" were heating up again, threatening to spiral as badly out of control as they had in the middle decades of the previous century. And Captain Trevor Stirling was caught in the middle, a place where no self-respecting Scotsman had any business to be.

Worse still, it was his ruddy birthday.