She was an expert shot and an expert fighter, and she was utterly helpless against the fury that held her.

It is the early 90s and the Berlin Wall is down. At the insistence of her family, Mara Sobieski has a safe job in a quiet corner of the intelligence world, until Sergei Pavlenko asks for her help. As the USSR becomes the Russian Federation, Sergei finds himself in danger from his former colleagues in the KGB.

The information he holds imperils a diverse collection of interests held by government functionaries and more importantly, by Mara and her family, who lead Charlemagne, the premier freelance specialist team used by western governments for black operations conducted without fingerprints.

Mara agrees to help Sergei, much to the disgust of her brother and his friends, who consider him the worst of their enemies. Her intervention forces them all into a harrowing race to San Antonio, where her family's security and her own life will depend on Sergei's information and the fighting skills of the team.

Will Charlemagne win the quest for the file that threatens Mara Sobieski's life?

State of Nature is the fifth novel in K.A. Bachus's fast-paced Charlemagne Files series chronicling the lives of a team of deadly Cold War intelligence operatives over a span of three decades.