This book carries “Star Trek Enterprise” beyond the end of the TV series. But the only way to write about it with a spoiler.

SPOILER: Trip doesn’t die in the last episode of “Enterprise”. His death is faked to allow him to carry out a secret mission in Romulan space. A mission on behalf of the spy organization Section 31,which comes out a lot more benign here than in other treatments in both “Deep Space 9” and “Enterprise”.

The book is a good read, alternating between Trip’s mission in Romulan space and the Enterprise’s parallel mission which also leads into Romulan space. Along the way we discover why powerful Coridan did not become part of the Federation at its inception, making necessary the events of the original TV series episode “Journey to Babel” which concerns a diplomatic conference on the admission of a far weaker Coridan.

We also learn a few things about the Romulans, and their early attempts to develop cloaking technology and warp ships using singularities rather than the matter anti-matter reactions used by other Star Trek civilizations.

This book also probably will make it difficult to make an “Enterprise” movie, had there been any plans to do so. Either they film this book, which would not be bad, or everything in the book is invalidated. (Of course making a film on some other line would mean doing it without the Tucker character, which would be a loss.)

That would not be the first time a Star Trek movie destroyed the premise of a Star Trek book. “First Contact” completely undid all the events of the book “Strangers from the Sky”. Ironically the underlying premise of “Stranger in the Sky” is the premise of “The Good That Men Do”: Everyone knows the true history and what everyone knows is wrong.

In this case the discovery of the true history is by two figures from “Deep Space 9” in their later years, Jake Sisko and Nog. Nog brings Jake the secret files about the survival of Trip Tucker and his role in delaying, but not averting, the Romulan War. That is a nice touch for fans of DS9.

The technique also leaves the door open for the further adventures of Tucker the spy in Romulan space and the Enterprise crew, as the Romulan War approaches. (But there don’t seem to be any more Enterprise books planned for 2007.)