Miriam Beckstein, a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, finds iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme. But when she takes it to her editor, she's fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she has uncovered.

Before the day is over, she's received a locket left by the mother she never knew - the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. Within is a knot work pattern, which has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she's transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons, and where world-skipping assassins lurk just on the other side of reality - a world where her true family runs things.

'Fast, funny, busily inventive . . . [Stross] is the creme de la creme' Locus

'Science fiction is in good hands with Charles Stross here to lead the new generation' Orson Scott Card