With people from the Undercity joining the Raylicon track and field team, Bhajaan has added assistant coach to her work as a private investigator and her unofficial role as the government's liaison with the Undercity. Competing in the Interstellar Games alongside other teams from their own Skolian Imperialate, Earth's planets, and the horrible Euban empire (aka The Traders) highlights new characters and fresh storylines. In the background Bhaj is investigating a corporate takeover for Vaj Majda. At first it seems unimportant but then Bhaj starts uncovering startling secrets that once again emphasize that the Undercity, City of Cries, and the noble houses of Raylicon are all deeply intertwined no matter how much they all deny it.

Catherine Asaro's most recent series set in her Skolian Empire continues with Major Bhaajan investigating the sudden disappearance of a wealthy woman from her own party. The house EI, (Evolving Intelligence), has no record of the exact minute she vanished and the destruction of the room almost looks like there was an explosion but there is no body or evidence that she left the house. Bhaajan has little to go on until another woman vanishes. Again the EI has no record and a woman in the next room heard nothing. This time the crime is personal for Lavinda Majda, the one royal that Bhaaj not only respects but actually likes.  Thanks to her relationship with the crimelord Jak in the Undercity, Bhaaj slowly begins to unravel a conspiracy hidden among the Empire's elite. They are attempting to use ancient technology leftover from those who originally brought humans to Raylicon six thousand years earlier. 

Major Bhaajan is a retired soldier working as a P.I. when she returns to the desolate world of her birth. A young nobleman, who in this matriarchal society has lived his entire life in seclusion, has gone missing and the police can't find his trail because he disappeared into the ruins and caves beneath the city. The City of Cries believes the Undercity to be nothing more than a slum but to Bhaajan it's the home she both loves and hates. Locating the missing prince is only the beginning and it's time for an intergalactic empire to realize that their greatest resource is dying from neglect right under their feet.