Ecolitan Matter

Major Jimjoy Earle Wright, secret agent of the Empire, is intelligent and highly trained. But he succeeds all too well in overthrowing a military dictatorship-and the result is a new government inimical to the Empire and disgrace for Jimjoy. After surviving two assassination attempts, Jimjoy realizes that it's his own imperial superiors who want him dead; that, in fact, his worst enemies could become his best friends. He fights his way to safety on the planet Accord, where the Ecolitan Institute wins his loyalty and changes his identity. Now he is James Joyson Whaler, Ecolitan, in the middle of a war of independence against the inconceivably superior forces of the Empire. A shocking novel of what could happen if the fanatical defense of the environment crossed the line into deadly terror. When environmental consultant Jack McDarvid's boss is killed in a shootout near the Capitol, McDarvid becomes enmeshed in a diabolical plot behind the scenes of the environmental movement.

Spanning the human galaxy, the Empire is all-powerful: no human or alien forces have been able to stand against its power. But now, on the planet Accord, the Ecolitan Institute bids fair to challenge the might of the Empire, at last. Major Jimjoy Earle Wright, secret agent of the Empire, is intelligent and highly trained. But he succeeds all too well in overthrowing a military dictatorship-and the result is a new government inimical to the Empire and disgrace for Jimjoy. After surviving two assassination attempts, Jimjoy realizes that it's his own imperial superiors who want him dead: that, in fact his worst enemies could now become his best friends. Jimjoy switches sides, joins the Ecolitan Institute and changes his identity. Now, as James Joyson Whaler, he must fight in the war for independence against his former colleagues.

Four hundred years after winning Secession from the Terran Empire, the star system Accord wants to sign a simple trade treaty on microchip export tariffs. But if the agreement is so minor, why is Professor Nathaniel Whaler-top economist at the Ecolitan Institute, and his world's top commando killer-chosen Accord's Envoy? Because the Imperial capital is a maddening bureaucracy of sniveling diplomats, high profile figureheads, powers behind the throne, and spies-everywhere, spies... Because the Envoy has to face red tape, politics, prejudice-and a gauntlet of kidnappers, assassins, snipers, and bombs... Because some Ministry-but which?-doesn't want the treaty. Because some in the Empire still blame Accord for Earth's poisoning and the defection of fifty star systems after the war between Imperial nuclear might and Ecolitan bio-ecological weaponry. A hidden cabal wants to fight the war again-even if, this time, the entire galaxy dies. And only Nathaniel Whaler, the Ecologic Envoy, has the power to stop the catastrophe.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s science fiction novels have been pleasing readers for nearly two decades. Among his earlier novels were three books set in the future universe of the Ecolitan Institute. Now Modesitt returns to that world to tell another story of cultural conflict and interstellar diplomacy. The Ecolitan Enigma is sure to thrill his old fans and win new ones. Nathaniel Firstborn Whaler is an Ecolitan, both a professor at the Institute and a field agent with extraordinary powers. Sent to a backwater colony planet nominally to determine its economic viability, Whaler evades assassin's bullets only steps from the spaceport. He soon uncovers evidence that the planet will become the flashpoint for interstellar conflict between two empires, with each prepared to blame the Ecolitan Institute should war break out. Whaler must do everything in his power to stop what might become the worst disaster in human history. And Nathaniel whaler just may have more power than any man in the galaxy.