Jefferson Nighthawk has married and retired. He hopes to spend the rest of his life tending his garden on a small isolated world. And why shouldn't he? After all he left two clones of himself behind to handle all the dangerous assignments that fell to the Widowmaker. Until the day he learns that the two clones have finally met and one has almost killed the other. Why? He doesn't know. And until he does know there's a chance that he's turned a deadly killer loose on a galaxy that has come to trust him. He has no choice but to become the Widowmaker once again find the clone and learn what happened. And he'd better do it soon because there's a danger abroad in the galaxy that will take all three Widowmakers to confront it. 5-time Hugo winner returns to the saga of the Widowmaker with another outstanding novel.