Cagebird

Philip K. Dick Award: Best Novel nominee (2005).

At age four, Yuri Kirov watched his homecolony destroyed by the alien enemy. By six, he was a wounded soul, fending for himself in a desolate refugee camp, and still a child when the pirates found him. Now 24, Yuri is a killer, a spy, a blackmailer, and a pirate captaindoing life in prison.

That is until Earthhub Black Ops agents decide to make Yuri their secret weapon in a covert interstellar power grab. Released from jail, but on a leash to the government, Yuri is more trapped than ever. Controlled by men even more ruthless than the brigands hes ordered to betray, Yuri is back again in deep space where his survival depends on a dangerous act: trusting a strangers offer of help.