Cirrus@Austlit

'Few images evoke a more powerful or frightening reaction than that of the assassin. Silently creeping into your room while you sleep, they plunge a pick deep inside your brain, or fill your snoring nostrils with poisonous vapour. Or perhaps skilled fingers from the shadows strike a vital point during mid-step; the coroners say it was a heart attack. Assassins are people to be feared, no doubt. But what do they fear? What do they dream of? What life, what world, are they longing to achieve with their actions? Is the killing just a job or is there some deeper motivation that drives them? And what happens when it all goes wrong?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2nd edition).