This note contains spoilers for the book.

Book 4 of The Merchant Princes.

Miriam ends up trapped into the clan for a while, and is nearly married to the younger royal heir (the Idiot), when a coup blows many people away.

Meanwhile the DEA and military people have Matthias, and are debriefing him, but lose track of his ability to stop cooperating and even cause them trouble. He ends up dead, and they've lost their information, and they send a DEA guy that Miriam dated some years ago undercover to the Clan's world. And he makes contact during the coup attempt at a royal party.

Looks like quite a mess to me. Miriam's position trapped in the feudal society is quite scary, and it's rather amusing that nobody really understands that the high honor she has there is much less desirable to her than being a person in our society.

The paperback of book 4 comes out at the end of September 2008, and I will no doubt read it.