Sergeant Lester Ferris is a good man in need of a rest. He's spent a lot of his life being shot at. He has no family, he's nearly forty, burned out and about to be retired.

The island of Mancreu is the perfect place for Lester to serve out his time - and the perfect place for shady business, too, hence the Black Fleet of illicit ships lurking in the bay: listening stations, money laundering operations, drug factories and deniable torture centres. None of which should be a problem, because Lester's brief is to turn a blind eye.

But Lester has made a friend: a brilliant, internet-addled street kid with a comic-book fixation who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. As Mancreu's small society tumbles into violence, the boy needs Lester to be more than just an observer. He needs him to be a hero.