Out of the savagery of the Paris barricades there was born the most sinister of all the terrorist groups of the late 1960s. Secretly funded by Moscow, trained in subversion and assassination in Italy, the Crystal Faction came to England. To wage war… For Nick Ryder of Special Branch, finding and infiltrating the cell presented a daunting challenge. Hampered by the deviousness of his own superiors and lack of cooperation from MI5, he was drawn slowly but inexorably into a tangled web of sex, drugs, murder, intrigue and lost innocence. And at the centre, Gabrielle Schroeder, leader of the Crystal Faction. A tough, daring, utterly ruthless woman for whom killing had become a pleasure…