The Third Wire is the last chapter of the Dan Roberts trilogy. The novels are independent works, but the author recommends reading in chronological order. In The Spad Driver Roberts, a young Naval Aviator deals with the realities of the Vietnam War and felony aboard an aircraft carrier. Helens Challenge finds Roberts in middle age confronted by a retired reporter who had witnessed the unpunished crime Roberts committed. The Third Wire Roberts wife has died. Elderly and alone, he has lost the will to live. Then a powerful nemesis blackmails him. He reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of a former associate. He soon uncovers layers of deceit, and experiences a final redemption.

The first edition of this work is considered a classic reference in the field. This new edition updates the entire work and adds 100 pages of information covering new materials and techniques such as fine pitch

Read & Burn is the first serious, in-depth appraisal of Wire, one of the most influential British bands to emerge during the punk era. If Wire were briefly a punk band, however, it was largely by historical accident. Despite the fact that they had complicated and transformed that category almost before they'd begun, they seem never to have quite escaped the label. Be it punk, post-punk, or art-punk, critics have clung onto the p-word in an attempt to capture the essence of Wire's innovative uniqueness. But their story - which honours punk's original yet quickly forgotten commitment to the new - is one of constant remaking and remodelling, one that stubbornly resists reduction to a single identity. As a result, the group's projects have always balanced uneasily between artistic endeavour and the need for commercial sustainability, played out against the backdrop of the musicians' perennially complex creative relationships. Tracing Wire's diverse output from 1977 up until the present, Read & Burn seeks to do justice to their highly influential and restlessly inventive body of work.