Dr Edward Kitchener, a brilliant researcher into quantum cosmology for the Event Horizon conglomerate . . . but no good to anybody now, lying dead with his lungs spread out on either side of his open chest.

The security system at Launde Abbey was premier-grade, yet a mercenary could still have got through, and plenty of people anxious to stop Kitchener's work would pay the killer's fee. But why would a professional waste time in ritually slaughtering the target?

Event Horizon needs to know fast, so Greg Mandel, psi-boosted ex-private eye, is enticed out of retirement to launch himself on a convoluted trail involving confrontation with a past which - according to Kitchener's theories - might never have happened.

`I cannot recommend this too highly' IAN McDONALD

`Peter Hamilton manages a very neat trick, combining deft scientific and social speculation with the page-turning appeal of the best thrillers' TAD WILLIAMS