Tim Pigott-Smith

A stranger arrives in a small village carrying a backpack containing eleven gold bars and a notebook. He buries the gold, and strikes up a friendship with Miss Prym. His mission is to find out whether human beings are essentially good or evil, so the village is set a moral challenge from which it may never recover.

Charley Fortnum, the Honorary Consul, a whisky-sodden figure of dubious authority, is kidnapped by a group of revolutionaries. As local doctor, Eduardo Plarr, negotiates for Fortnum's release, their corruption becomes evident.

When a leak is traced back to a small sub-section of SIS, it sparks off security checks, tensions and suspicions - the sort of atmosphere where mistakes could be made. This novel opens up the lonely, isolated, neurotic world of the Secret Service.

Volume 1: The Early Kings. An in-depth examination of how the English monarchy came into being. This volume covers the retreat of the Romans from Britain in 410 to the fall of the House of Lancaster in the middle of the 15th century. The kings most heavily featured are: Alfred the Great, Canute, Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, Henry III and Henry VI.