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