Imager's Challenge (Imager Portfolio Series #2) »

New York Times bestselling author L.E. Modesitt, Jr. lives in Cedar City, Utah.

Imager's Challenge takes up immediately after the conclusion of Imager.

Still recovering from injuries received in foiling the plots of the Ferran envoy, Rhenn is preparing to take up his new duties as imager liaison to the Civic Patrol of L'Excelsis. No sooner has he assumed his new position than he discovers two things. First, the commander of the Civic Patrol doesn't want a liaison from the infamous Collegium and soon has Rhenn patrolling the streets of the worst district in the city.

Second, Rhenn receives formal notice that one of the High Holders, the father of a man Rhenn partly blinded in self-defense, has declared his intention to destroy Rhenn and his family.

Rhenn's only allies are the family of the girl he loves, successful merchants with underworld connections. In the end, Rhenn must stand off against gang lords, naval marines, Tiempran terrorist priests, the most powerful High Holder in all of Solidar, and his own Collegium---and find a way to prevail...

Publishers Weekly

In this second installment of Modesitt's serpentine political fantasy series (following 2008's Imager), the imager Rhennthyl has been made a Maitre D'Aspect and Liaison to the Civic Patrol of L'Excelsis. As a covert security operative, Rhennthyl must ferret out corruption. He expects guidance from the Collegium, but the more involved he becomes in the patrol, the more the masters distance themselves. When Rhennthyl makes enemies of one of the high holder families, the Collegium's refusal to become involved leaves him no options but to take matters into his own hands. Though the story drags occasionally as Rhennthyl ponders every aspect of his predicament and the Masters give constant professorial lectures, Modesitt's steady prose guides Rhennthyl and the reader through the hierarchical foot-dragging and feudal power-mongering.
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