In Enemy Hands

In Enemy Hands is a science fiction novel by the American writer David Weber, first published in 1996 and the seventh book of the Honor Harrington series.

Much of the novel is preparation, since Weber is careful about the intelligence picture, the orders and the escort's composition before the trap closes, and the reader can see the mistake being made before the characters do. Once Honor is taken, the book turns into an account of captivity and interrogation at the hands of the Republic's State Security apparatus, which is the closest the series comes to writing about cruelty for its own sake, and the chapters are concerned with what a person can keep of herself under that pressure. The distance between the Republic's revolutionary language and what its security services actually do is the novel's real subject, and Honor's rank and reputation are what make her a prize worth taking. The relations between the two powers are also advanced here, including the resentment in Manticore at a war that has no end and the internal politics of a government that needs victories. It is the middle volume of the sequence that runs from Honor Among Enemies through Echoes of Honor.