Captain Jean-Luc Picard becomes hard-boiled private detective Dixon Hill in a thrilling Star Trek mystery that blends 1940s San Francisco noir, murder, gangsters, and a race to save the Starship Enterprise from a deadly distortion in space and time.

In this Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Captain Jean-Luc Picard has long enjoyed playing the part of Dixon Hill. His holodeck excursions into 1940s San Francisco, a colorful world of gunplay and gangsters, provide a welcome diversion from his hefty responsibilities as a Starfleet captain.

But not this time.

The Starship Enterprise has lost power and control, its own momentum carrying it ever deeper into a dangerous zone of warped space and time. And the only way out is hidden somewhere in the mean streets and back alleys of old Frisco. But so is a cold-blooded murderer...

Now Dixon Hill, alias Jean-Luc Picard, must solve a tangled murder mystery that threatens the lives of everyone aboard the Enterprise!