When Connor and Logan Cardwain, a gangster's lieutenants, steal a shipment of high-grade narcotics on the orders of their boss, Connor dreams of diverting the profits and setting up in business for himself. His plans encounter a hurdle in the form of Eloise Falaviere, Logan's former girlfriend, who has been hired by an interplanetary police force's vice squad. Logan wants a family; Eloise wants to stop the drugs shipment from being sent to her home planet; Connor wants to gain independence without angering his boss. All of their plans are derailed, though, when they discover that the shipment was hiding a much deadlier secret - the prototype of a tiny superweapon powerful enough to destabilise galactic peace. Crime lords, corrupt officials and interstellar magicians soon begin pursuing them, and Connor, Logan and Eloise realise they have to identify and confront the superweapon's smuggler in order to survive. But, when one by one their friends begin to betray them, their self-imposed mission transforms from difficult to near-impossible.

In a city streaked with vice on a planet upturned by ganglanders’ ambition, why would anyone care about the murder of a cleaner? One young woman dies and another vanishes on the same chilly spring night. Connor Cardwain sees no reason to link his cleaner Merissa’s murder to a mystery anchored within a high-end warship sales team, but reconsiders his position when he realises both women were connected to a foreign runaway. Armed with an enterprising widow, an imperial spy and his own wits, Connor sets out to find the missing woman, in a city streaked with vice and a planet upturned by other ganglanders’ ambition. If he fails to beat arms dealers, aristocrats, pirates and human traffickers at their own game, he and all his team will pay the price – and the wages of sin are death. Visit bit.ly/WagesOfSin We were introduced to Zoë’s universe, not to mention Connor Cardwain et al, in her acclaimed debut novel Sailor to a Siren, the first book in the Underside series: “If you like your space opera fast and violent, \[Sailor to a Siren\] is for you” – Jaine Fenn “\[Sailor to a Siren is\] a perfect example of how to write entertaining and fast-paced space opera for adults with compelling characters and gritty scenes … she is a talented author who has managed to pack a lot of story into a single novel and she has done it well. (More, please!)” – RisingShadow “Sailor to a Siren is classic science fiction … Zoë Sumra’s world-building is the best I have seen in a very very long time … \[an\] outstanding debut novel” – Marion L. Thorpe With a fantastic cover by artist Alex Storer