Pickpocket John Jacob Turnstile is on his way to be detained at His Majesty's Pleasure when he is offered a lifeline, what seems like a freedom of sorts - the job of personal valet to a departing naval captain. Little does he realise that it is anything but - and by accepting the devil's bargain he will put his life in perilous danger.

1936: London is abuzz with gossip about the affair between Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson. But the king is not the only member of the aristocracy with a hard decision to make. Owen Montignac, the handsome and charismatic descendent of a wealthy land-owning family, is anxiously awaiting the reading of his late uncle's will.

The Ninjas are the stuff of myth and legend in comics, film and electronic games. But once they were real, the medieval equivalent of the SAS: spies, saboteurs, assassins. Could they fly? Make themselves invisible? In a journey to the heartland of the ninjas, the author takes you from their origins over 1,000 years ago, through their heyday.

A frightened girl bangs on a door. A man answers. From the moment he invites her in, his world will never be the same again. She will tell him about her family, and their strange life in the show home of an abandoned housing estate.

January 1829: George IV is on the throne, Wellington is England's prime-minister, and snow is falling thickly on the London streets as Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey is summoned to the Horse Guards in the expectation of command of his regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons. But the benefits of long-term peace at home mean cuts in the army.