Sharrow is a former aristocrat in the Golter system - an isolated civilisation cut off from the rest of the galaxy - and someone wants her dead. The Huhsz, a fanatical religious cult, have been granted a legal warrant for her assassination, and her only hope of survival is to find the Lazy Gun: an ancient, impossibly powerful weapon that is the last of its kind. To find it, Sharrow reassembles her old military team - Miz, Dloan, Zefla, and Cenuij - and embarks on a treasure hunt across a world littered with the ruins of fallen civilisations. Iain M. Banks' darkest science fiction novel, a story about loss, the weight of history, and a woman running out of places to hide.