Retired Colonel Ray Longknife has been sent to Savannah on a diplomatic mission to check out a President-for-life who is getting ready to hold a "fair and open" election. Marine Captain Mary Rodrigo and her troop and there to protect him. Ray is traveling there on a spaceship that is exploring some of the jump science that Ray learned on Sainte Marie when he battled the supercomputer that ran the place.

Lieutenant Terrence "Trouble" Tordon and his new wife Ruth are also there on Savannah. They are on the trail of the drug business that caught them up in the previous book. Ruth, as part-time DEA, is looking for the labs that developed the drug.

They find a society that is messed up. The different nationalities are all being urged to fight against each other. The cops are the bad guys. There are no social services leaving growing numbers of children out on the streets except for a few religious agencies and the Salvation Army who run small shelters.

Ruth recruits a few of these street kids to be her native guides and help her find her way around the city. The intel she is gaining from the kids is more than the embassy's intelligence agents have been able to learn.

As Ruth gets closer to the hidden labs, she is drawing more and more attention from the villains who have no intention of giving up any of their power.

This episode has Trouble and Ruth battling actual land battles with tanks versus Marines while Ray is trying to build a new political system once the dictator can be disposed of. I enjoyed both the battles and the political maneuvering in this story. I liked seeing more of Ray, Mary, Trouble and Ruth. ( )

I know the people from the Kris Longknife series. Characters are not quite as strong. Maybe I need to start at book 1. ( )