Short Synopsis
Award-winning author Alastair Reynolds brings his "true and awesome wide-screen SF imagination" (Locus) to The Prefect, a roller-coaster ride through the dark and turbulent universe of Revelation Space, where nothing—and no one—is what it seems.

Full Synopsis
Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds.

His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus. But then his investigation uncovers something far more serious than mass slaughter—a covert plot by an enigmatic entity who seeks nothing less than total control of the Glitter Band.

Before long, the Panoply detectives are fighting against something worse than tyranny, in a struggle that will lead to more devastation and more death. And Dreyfus will discover that to save what is precious, you may have to destroy it.

"A fascinating hybrid of space opera, police procedural and character study.... This is solid British SF adventure, evoking echoes of le Carre and Sayers with a liberal dash of Doctor Who." ---Publishers Weekly

"Absorbing.... Gripping in the extreme.... A fine, provocative portrait of utopia on the brink." ---Locus