Jericho is a doctoral student of the mathematician Alan Turing at a Cambridge college. When the war starts Turing and other professors disappear, recruited as code breakers by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). Eventually Jericho is also roped in, at the invitation of Atwood who is professor of ancient history at the same college. At Bletchley the code breakers are an eclectic academic set, under pressure to break the Enigma code used by German U-boats wreaking havoc on British and American shipping in the Atlantic. The tension is magnified by internal turf rivalry between the allies over the cryptography effort, with the Americans of the opinion that the chummy common-room efforts of the British operation cannot sustain the decryption speed and volume required to win the Battle of the Atlantic. In the book Turing himself is absent from Bletchley, on a trip to Washington D.C. On a train en route to Bletchley, Jericho happens to meet the attractive Claire Romilly who works as a clerk at one of the huts, temporary buildings on the park grounds housing the growing code breaking effort. Jericho helps Claire finish the Times crossword with ease and the two strike up a friendship. Claire''s upper-crust manner reflects what Baxter (a code breaker with leftist views) terms as the organization of Bletchley Park along British class lines. Society debutantes are chosen to handle sensitive transcription whereas the more mundane tasks are delegated to young women from working-class backgrounds. As Jericho gets closer to Claire, he also discovers a back door to breaking the U-boat Enigma code which establishes his reputation among the code breakers. One night Jericho is stunned to see intercepted (but still encoded) signal transcription forms in Claire''s bedroom, a serious violation of security procedure. Confronted with the forms Claire reacts in an emotionally wounded manner, which also signals the end of Jericho''s romance with her. However Jericho does not report the incident or the security breach. In the following days Jericho desperately attempts to meet Claire once again, and slowly tips himself over the edge of a nervous breakdown. He is sent back to his college to recover. When the Germans change the Enigma naval code book, the Bletchley Park code breakers lose their back door and are forced to bring Jericho back. This is in fact how the book begins. Thereafter the plot unravels to answer a series of questions: What are the papers in Claire''s bedroom? Is she a spy? How much can Jericho trust Kramer, an American naval officer and one of Claire''s many lovers? What is the role of the supercilious upper-crust investigator Wigram? How much does Claire''s room mate Hester Wallace know? Are Jericho''s hut colleagues Atwood, Pinker, Puck, Baxter ... jealous of him? Will Jericho break the code for a second time as one of the largest convoys steams across the Atlantic pursued by U-boat wolf packs? Apart from the plot, the book is notable for its grim descriptions of winter in a war-torn Britain. The book, though fiction, is criticised by people who were at Bletchley Park as bearing little resemblance to the real wartime Bletchley Park.

Enigma

While attempting to steal back an important work of art, Shedara discovers that the lord of the keep has been attacked and is dying. He mistakes her for a friend and mutters "The Hooded One" before he dies from his mortal but bloodless wounds. After returning to Armach-nesti and discussing the event with the Voice of the Stars, she is sent on another mission to retrieve the Hooded One, a statue of an evil Emperor of Aurim, Maladar the Faceless. Maladar''s soul has been imprisoned in the statue and evil forces are at work to try to free him. Meanwhile, across the Tiderun, on the plains north of Coldhope Keep, Hult has discovered that the Uigan leader, their Bolya, has been ambushed. Chovuk and Hult look for the Boyla, and discover that he is still alive. Chovuk kills the Boyla, to be named the next Boyla. Hult later discovers that Chovuk has been learning evil sorcery from a black robed mage, known only as the Teacher. Chovuk fights the other contestant for the position of Boyla, and wins because he used sorcery to shape change into steppe-tiger. The tribes have a superstition that the steppe-tiger is the avatar of their god, and so embrace Chovuk as the new Boyla. Chovuk recruits the goblins, as well as an elf, Eldako, from the wild elf tribes to help him attack the Imperial League. They burn, sack, and massacre the towns and villages of the Imperial League north of the Tiderun, while they wait for the moons to sink below the horizon, so that the Tiderun will become dry. In the Imperial League south of the Tiderun, Forlo is returning from many long years of war, when he discovers that the capital has been damaged by an earthquake, and that the emperor and almost all of his immediate blood relatives are dead. He also finds out that the keeper of the peace is Duke Rekhaz. Forlo meets Duke Rekhaz, and Rekhaz wants Forlo to help command his army, so that Rekhaz can defeat any opponents vying for the throne. However, Forlo has a writ of dismissal from the now dead emperor, so he refuses to serve, which angers Rekhaz. Forlo returns home, to discover a pirate raiding in his waters, whom he had previously signed a treaty with. He discovers that the pirate raided the ship only because the ship was carrying artifacts that hadn''t been taxed, and the owner of the ship was a rich merchant. In return for raiding the ship, the pirate gives Forlo a statue. After taking it home, he finds out that his wife is pregnant, and that they both feel the statue''s menacing presence. He decides to have it moved into the family vaults under the keep. Shedara discovers that the statue was stolen from a merchant, and that it has ended up in the hands of Barreth Forlo. She attempts to steal the statue, but is trapped and captured by Forlo''s guards. Forlo questions her, but she refuses to answer and he has her locked up in a tower. He learns that the Uigan are preparing to cross the Tiderun, and attack his fief. He calls for aid from Rekhaz, but Rekhaz questions his loyalty. Rekhaz agrees to give Forlo only six hundred men if he agrees to rejoin the army. Forced to act, Forlo agrees. Later, Grath, a friend of Forlo''s and the current commander of the Sixth Legion agrees to help Forlo. He decides to send the Sixth Legion to help Forlo, but they still can''t hold the fief. He then questions Shedara again, and agrees to give her the statue if she will contact Armach-nesti to send aid. She contacts Armach-nesti, but discovers that the evil forces intent on capturing the statue have murdered the Voice of the Stars and all her people. Forlo tells her she''s free to go, but she still wants to help him, so she forces Maladar to send a gigantic wave over the barbarian horde. The barbarian horde is destroyed, and she manages to force Maladar back into the statue. A small remainder of the Uigan horde is still alive, as well as Eldako, the Boyla, and Hult. The horde doesn''t present much resistance and are easily defeated by Forlo and his men, however, the elf escapes. The Boyla turns back into a human because the evil forces betrayed him, so he becomes mad. He fights Forlo in an attempt to regain his honor, but Forlo kills him. The Boyla''s protector, Hult, decides not to avenge his master and instead follows Forlo. Forlo discovers that Grath was killed during the fighting and that the Uigan were sent as a diversion so that the keep would be unprotected. Forlo, Shedara, and Hult return to the keep only to discover that Essana has been kidnapped, the statue is missing and the only thing left behind is a dragon''s scale.

Blades of the Tiger

The story opens with the narrator taking on a lodger in his apartment, an old soldier named Astafy Ivanovich. One day, a thief steals the narrator''s coat, and Astafy tries to pursue him unsuccessfully. Astafy is dismayed by the theft and goes over the scenario over and over again. The narrator and Astafy share a distinct contempt for thieves, and one night Astafy tells the narrator a story of an honest thief that he had once run across. One night in a pub, Astafy Ivanovich happened upon Emelyan Ilyitch. Emelyan was obviously poor from the look of his tattered coat, and he was aching for a drink but had not the money. Astafy was moved by Emelyan''s acutely pathetic position, and he bought him a drink. From then on, Emelyan followed Astafy everywhere, eventually moving into his apartment. Astafy did not have much money himself, but he allowed Emelyan''s imposition because he was very aware that his drinking was a terrible problem. Emelyan would not stop his drinking, however, and even though he was quiet and not disruptive when he was drunk, Astafy could see that Yemelyan would never be able to support himself with such a habit. Astafy urged him to quit drinking, but to no avail. Eventually, Astafy effectively gave up on him and moved, never expecting to see Emelyan again. Very soon afterward, Astafy had moved Emelyan appears at his new apartment, and the two continue to go on as they had before. Astafy would support Emelyan with food and lodging, and Emelyan would always go out and come back drunk. Sometimes he would disappear for days only to return drunk and almost frozen. Astafy, now working as a tailor, was short on money. One of his projects, a pair of riding breeches for a wealthy customer, were never claimed. He thought he could sell the breeches to get money for more useful clothes and some food, but when he decided to sell the breeches, they were nowhere to be found. Emelyan was drunk as usual, and denied the theft. Astafy was terribly vexed by the theft, and kept looking for the breeches while still suspicious of Emelyan. Emelyan always denied the theft. One day, Astafy and Emelyan had a terrible fight over the breeches and Emelyan''s drinking, and Emelyan left the apartment and did not return for days. Astafy even went to look for him one day with no luck. Eventually, Emelyan returned, almost starved and frozen. Astafy took him back in, but it was clear that Emelyan''s days were numbered. Days later, after Emelyan''s health had deteriorated terribly, Emelyan wanted to tell Astafy something about the breeches. With his last words, Emelyan admitted to stealing the breeches.

An Honest Thief

At the start of the novel, Evelyn, a male English professor is taking up a new post in a university in New York. His tribute to Tristessa de St Ange, the American silent movie star, on his last night in England is to be given fellatio by a girl he takes to see one of her films. He arrives in a dystopian New York, a city in its last stages of rotting death, overrun by huge rats and human emotions distilled to their most primeval. He becomes fascinated with Leilah, an exotic young African American night club dancer, and while they have a short relationship he makes no emotional link, seeing her only in terms of sex. He becomes repelled by her when she falls pregnant and abandons her to an abortion. Evelyn seeks out the clean, clear desert and is captured by a woman from the subterranean female city of Beulah and dragged across the sandscape to encounter Mother, a cruel mother goddess figure who fashioned herself with the surgeon''s knife. She changes Evelyn into Eve, ironically the woman who he has always lusted after, and aims to impregnate him with a new Messiah, using his own sperm (harvested from him before the operation). The transformation from male to female, seems to be absolute as despite the fact that Eve struggles to learn to become the woman that her body is, from this point on she is referred to only in female pronouns. Eve, escapes but is enslaved by Zero, a cruel male cult leader and "poet" with only one eye and one leg&mdash;a half man who celebrates his degraded self. His harem are all passive, slavish "wives" who he whips unless they talk in grunts and honour their bedfellows, the pigs. Zero rapes Eve and makes her his newest wife. He then leads Eve on a search for the silent film star Tristessa, an embodiment of beauty, sorrow, and loneliness, whom he hates obsessively, because he believes Tristessa has made him infertile. Tristessa was Evelyn''s first object of desire in his boyhood, and Eve has his own obsession with this figure. Zero leads his dungaree-clad harem to the glass palace of Tristessa and invades and decimates the beautiful, gothic pile, discovering Tristessa herself laid out in a room surrounded by waxwork effigies in coffins. However she is alive and only when Zero tracks her down to the top of one of the towers and cuts her thong do the gang discover that Tristessa is male. Upon discovering this, Zero and his wives create a mock-up wedding ceremony and marry the two, forcing Tristessa to rape Eve. Eve and Tristessa escape and spin the Zero and his harem to death in Tristessa''s spinning glass palace and escape back into the desert where they imbibe each other''s newly discovered sexuality, they fall in love through their realisation that they are Tiresias until Tristessa is shot by a passing band of desert, mafia, teenage boys. Their Colonel is 14 years old and scared of the dark. They "rescue" Eve, but she escapes and encounters Leila in a new guise of Lilith, vagabond rebel leader. Lilith takes Eve to the coast to meet with Mother again, here they see a crazy old lady on a beach&mdash;a manifestation of ageing superficiality: dirty, caked in make-up, with piled high golden locks, singing old musical songs and living on vodka and cold tinned food and defecating in the bushes behind her deck chair. Eve realises that Leilah never objectively existed but was only a manifestation of his own lusts and corruption. Lilith tells Eve she must go and meet The Mother and pushes her into a cleft in the rocks that metamorphoses into the uterus of time. Eve progresses through the increasingly deep and warm subterranean rock pools to her rebirth. The amber Eve discovers in one of the caves and holds in her hands liquifies into ancient pine forests and primeval species. Eve is then symbolically reborn, guided by Leilah, and rejects her chauvinistic male past. Eve emerges onto a beach by Lilith, (name taken from the apocryphal story of Adam''s first wife) who leaves her to go back and fight with her rebels, saying Eve cannot join her because she is pregnant. Eve swaps the gold alchemical on a neck chain that Lilith has given her for the purple skiff belonging to the crazed old woman and launches herself into the ocean.

The Passion of New Eve

As Rand''s story begins he is restoring order in the nation of Arad Doman while searching for Graendal, one of the Dark One''s favored servants known as the Forsaken. The Aes Sedai work with Rand to interrogate Semirhage, another Forsaken captured at the end of Knife of Dreams. After being freed by her allies, Semirhage is given a Domination Band, an item used to control male channelers, and locks it around Rand''s neck. She and Black Ajah sister Elza Penfell use it to make him torture and attempt to kill his lover, Min Farshaw. Unable to channel, he reaches out and inexplicably accesses the True Power, a different power normally only granted by the Dark One, using it to free himself and kill Semirhage and Elza. After this, he resolves to make himself harder and emotionless. He banishes his adviser Cadsuane Melaidhrin for not securing the Domination Band, promising to kill her if he sees her face again. Rand meets with the Seanchan, a civilization that invaded the continent earlier in the series. Their leader Tuon rejects Rand''s offer of a truce after sensing a dark aura that emanated from Rand after he channeled the True Power. Following the meeting, Tuon declares herself Empress and prepares a surprise attack against the White Tower. Graendal''s hiding place is traced to a remote palace. Confirming her presence, Rand uses the Choedan Kal, a powerful magical artifact, to eliminate the entire building with balefire, a magic that wipes the target from time. This horrifies Min and Nynaeve al''Meara and they turn to Cadsuane for help. Giving up on saving Arad Doman from the Seanchan and starvation, Rand returns to the city of Tear. Nynaeve, under the instruction of Cadsuane, locates Tam al''Thor, Rand''s father, who meets with Rand in an attempt to break his emotional isolation. Rand becomes angry when he learns that Tam was sent by Cadsuane, nearly killing his father before fleeing in horror at what he had almost done. Rand Travels to the Seanchan-held city of Ebou Dar, intending to destroy their entire army, but he becomes reluctant to act after seeing how peaceful the city is. Nearly mad with rage and grief, he Travels to the top of Dragonmount, the location where he killed himself in a past life. Angry at the futility of life bound to the Wheel, he uses the Choedan Kal to draw enough power to destroy the world. Lews Therin, a voice in Rand''s head from his past life, suggests that by being reborn one has the opportunity to do things right. Agreeing, Rand turns the power of the Choedan Kal against itself, destroying it. Rand is finally able to laugh again. The second main plot thread follows Egwene al''Vere, leader of the rebel faction of Aes Sedai. After her capture by the White Tower in the previous book, Egwene works to undermine Elaida a''Roihan''s rule and mend the strife it is causing in the White Tower. She is initially granted freedom of the tower as novice, but after publicly denouncing Elaida, Elaida names her a follower of the Dark One, and orders her imprisonment. When Elaida fails to prove her accusation, Egwene is released. Egwene returns to her room to find Verin Mathwin, who announces that she is of the Black Ajah. Taking advantage of a loophole in the oath Verin had sworn that she could not betray them "until the hour of my death", she fatally poisons herself, allowing her to use her last hour to reveal everything she has learned to Egwene. Verin explains that although she was forced to swear to them or face death, she used the position to research the Ajah. She gives Egwene a journal detailing the group''s structure and nearly every member before succumbing to the poison. When the Seanchan attack the White Tower, its fractured state prevents an effective defense. Many Aes Sedai are captured or killed until Egwene, leading a group of novices, succeeds in driving them off. Siuan Sanche, Gawyn Trakand, and Gareth Bryne mount a rescue of Egwene. They find her so exhausted that she cannot protest when they extract her against her orders. After awakening in the camp, she argues that they may have ruined her chances to gain credit in the Tower for the defeat of the Seanchan. Egwene begins to expose the Black Ajah among the rebels, requiring every sister to re-swear her allegiances. Fifty sisters are exposed and executed, while twenty are able to escape. Taking advantage of the weakened White Tower defenses following the Seanchan raid, the rebels prepare an immediate attack. Just before the attack is mounted, the Tower Aes Sedai announce that Elaida was captured in the Seanchan raid, and that they would have Egwene as their leader, the Amyrlin Seat. The rebels return and they begin rebuilding the Tower.

The Gathering Storm

The story begins with Xander and Jacob hunting gruskers, strange plant-eating creatures. Later, Jacob reveals that he wants to go to Teiresias in hopes of meeting the other escaped Seers. Delaney sells her eyes to buy his passage aboard the Odessa, commanded by Captain Bennet. Jacob becomes acquainted with the crew, but is wary of Folgrin, a businessman with strange eyes who seems suspicious. Aboard the ship, they go into Otherspace, a place encountered by entering a wormhole, and Jacob discovers that he is able to move during Otherspace, while others are rendered immobile. When the ship crashes on Maker''s Drift, a dark, neglected planet surrounded in superstition, only Bennet, Folgrin, and Jacob survive. After Jacob meets a strange couple, he and Bennet buy passage aboard a passenger liner to Teiresias, a strange planet where one half of the planet receives sunlight and the other is dark, cold, and barren. At Teiresias, Jacob eventually meets Avery, another Blinder who received vision. Jacob is taken to a base on the dark side of Teiresias where he meets the other Blinders who received sight and escaped.

OtherSpace

Alice Vavasor, a young woman of twenty-four, is engaged to the wealthy and respectable and dependable, if unambitious and bland, John Grey. She had previously been engaged to her cousin George, but she broke it off after he went through a wild period. John, trusting in his love, makes only the slightest protest of Alice''s planned tour of Switzerland with her cousin Kate, George''s sister, even when he learns George is to go with them as male protector. Influenced by the romance of Switzerland, Kate''s conniving to restore George to Alice''s favour, and her own misgivings with John''s shortcomings, Alice jilts her second fiancé. Alice''s noble but despised relations are shocked, but their protests only strengthen Alice''s resolve, and she eventually renews her engagement to George. Now we increasingly see a darker side to George, who seemed charismatic, ambitious and alluring, in contrast to John. He starts asking for money from Alice to support his parliamentary ambitions. Ever attentive to Alice''s welfare, John secretly pays the money instead. George wins his first election, but loses his second and in despair and, after learning of John''s interference in his campaign and engagement, almost murders John before escaping to America. A second story involves the comic rivalry between the wealthy farmer Cheesacre and the pauper soldier Captain Bellfield for the affections (and substantial inheritance) of the widow Mrs. Greenow. Mrs. Greenow had married young to a very rich older man who had recently died. Still in mourning, which for her involves a great deal of performance, she also enjoys basking in the attentions of her beaux and pitting them against each other. Finally she decides to marry the more attractive Captain Bellfield, knowing that she can keep him under control. The third story deals with the marriage of the extremely rich Plantagenet Palliser to the even wealthier heiress, Lady Glencora M''Cluskie. They are not very well suited. He is a stiff-necked, hardworking politician in line to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, while she has a lively, fun-loving personality and a well-developed sense of humour. She is outspoken and often shocks Alice by her frankness. The marital situation is made more tense by Glencora''s failure to conceive a child. Previously, she had been engaged to Burgo Fitzgerald, an aristocratic wastrel, but the same noble relations that protested Alice''s jilt had successfully pressured Glencora to abandon Burgo to marry Plantagenet. But she is still passionately in love with Burgo, who plots to elope with Glencora. To Alice''s dismay, Glencora argues that it would be for the best if she eloped with Burgo as then Plantagenet could divorce her and marry someone else who could give him children. She publicly dances with Burgo at a ball and nearly agrees to go with him, even at the risk of her fortune and reputation. Plantagenet sacrifices his political ambitions to save his marriage by taking Glencora on a European tour with Alice accompanying. After some rancorous traveling, Glencora finds that she is pregnant, which solidifies her marriage and fulfills Plantagenet''s life, though it is clear that Glencora cannot love him. John Grey pursues Alice to Switzerland to renew his courtship and eventually wins her over again, despite her deep guilt over her jilt. They become engaged and Plantagenet persuades his new friend to run for Parliament, to Alice''s satisfaction. Back in England, Mrs. Greenow marries Bellfield, Glencora gives birth to a son, and Alice finally marries John. However Alice''s happiness is alloyed by a sense of defeat but she accepts this as the price to pay for having tried to be better than other girls.

Can You Forgive Her?

In "D is for Deadbeat," Kinsey is asked by ex-con Alvin Limardo to deliver a check for twenty-five thousand dollars to a fifteen-year-old boy named Tony Gahan. According to Limardo, Tony helped him through a tough time in his life, leaving Limardo indebted. However, when the retainer check Limardo made out to Kinsey for four hundred dollars bounces, she learns that Alvin Limardo is actually John Daggett, a man known by all and liked by few, recently released from a local prison. He was also a bigamist: his first wife Essie''s fanatical religious views have kept her married to Daggett, while Daggett, in disregard of his marital status, underwent a second marriage to Lovella on his release from prison, but has subjected her to repeated violence. In her search to find Daggett and get her money back, she discovers that he was found dead on the beach only a few days after hiring her. Through Daggett''s daughter Barbara, Kinsey learns that Tony Gahan was the sole survivor of a family killed in a car accident caused by Daggett, for which he received a conviction on charges of vehicular manslaughter. Tony''s been a wreck since the death of his family, rarely sleeping and doing poorly in school. He now lives with his uncle and aunt, Ramona and Ferrin Westfall. Also killed in the accident was a friend of Tony''s young sister, and a boy called Doug Polokowski, who had hitched a ride in the car. Kinsey tracks down an ex-con friend of Daggett''s, Billy Polo, now living in a trailer park with his sister, Coral. Billy is the one who introduced Lovella to Daggett. Kinsey finds out that Doug Polokowski was Billy and Coral''s brother. There''s no shortage of people with a motive for Daggett''s death, but the police are classifying it as an accident. Kinsey discovers that shortly before his death Daggett was staggering about drunk at the marina in the company of a blonde woman in a green outfit. She sets out to discover which of the numerous blonde women in the case might be the killer. She also suspects that Billy Polo is not giving her the full truth about his involvement with Daggett, a suspicion confirmed when Polo is also murdered at the beach, shot with Kinsey''s own gun, stolen from her car a few days earlier. Coral finally levels with Kinsey: she, Billy, and Lovella were plotting together to rob Daggett of money he had come by illicitly in prison, not knowing that Daggett had given the money to Kinsey to pass on to Tony. The police investigating Billy''s murder discover a home-made silencer used in the killing. Kinsey immediately recognises the towelling used as padding as coming from the Westfall household, and Ramona jumps to the top of her suspect list. This means confronting Tony, who has given Ramona an alibi for the time of Daggett''s death. In pursuing Tony, Kinsey realises Tony himself, dressed as a woman in his aunt''s wig, was actually the killer. He was also the one who stole her gun, and killed Billy Polo, who had recognised Tony at Daggett''s funeral. Killing the man who killed his family has done nothing to ease Tony''s torment, however, and he commits suicide by throwing himself off a building in front of Kinsey, who has been unable to talk him down.

"D" Is for Deadbeat

The book starts off from the events at the end of The Clan of the Cave Bear detailing the life of a young Cro-Magnon woman named Ayla who has just been exiled from the Clan, the band of Neanderthals who had raised her from early childhood. Ayla now searches for her own people, whom the Clan refer to as "the Others". In a parallel narrative, Jondalar, a young Cro-Magnon man of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, accompanies his impetuous younger half-brother Thonolan on a traditional rite of passage called the Great Journey. In these episodes, we learn of the Cro-Magnon''s neolithic nature religion, centered on the worship of the Great Mother of All, and follow their adventures and sexual exploits. It is also through these episodes that the animosity, verging on hatred, between the Others and the Clan (whom they refer to derogatorily as "flatheads") is introduced. The Others have repeatedly persecuted the Clan, taking land and resources, but justify it by classing them as animals. However, over the course of his adventures, Jondalar starts to question this prejudice, noting that no other animals have fire, tools or communicate intelligently, nor are they actively hated or attacked-as-sport by his people. Ayla, alone and ritually ostracized from the only people she has ever known, travels steadily from the Beran Sea peninsular home of her former tribe north for around half a year until finding the book''s titular valley sunk deep into the windy landscape of the periglacial loess steppes in Ukraine. Worried that she might never find the Others, she begins to prepare for winter. Finding a suitable cave and many conveniences in the valley, she establishes a comfortable but lonely life there. Her desire for companionship leads her to tame a filly whose mother she had killed, naming her Whinney. She also takes in and treats an injured cave lion cub, which she names Baby. In the course of their journey, Jondalar and Thonolan have met women and hope to settle with them, but Thonolan''s mate dies in childbirth and Jondalar feels he is not really in love with his woman friend. They continue on their journey and meet up with the Mamutoi people, planning to join them later in the year. Jondalar and Ayla meet when Thonolan is killed by a cave lion—Baby, now fully grown and with a mate of his own. Ayla heals Jondalar''s injuries and they begin to learn to communicate and get to know each other. Jondalar overcomes his inbred prejudice against the Clan and Ayla learns that all her peculiarities which confused and angered the Clan are actually fully accepted and encouraged by the Others. The two fall in love as the book nears its end, and decide to leave the Valley of Horses and explore regions around the valley Ayla has not yet investigated.

The Valley of Horses

Whilst browsing in a market in Brussels, Tintin purchases an old model ship which he wishes to give to his friend Captain Haddock as a gift. Two strangers, the model ship collector Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine and a mysterious figure known as Barnaby, then unsuccessfully try to independently convince Tintin to sell the model to them. Returning with the model to his flat, Snowy knocks it over and its mainmast is broken. Repairing it, and showing the ship to Haddock, the latter is amazed that it is actually a model of the Unicorn, a 17th-century warship captained by his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. The model ship is subsequently stolen, and it is revealed that Sakharine owns an identical model of the Unicorn, although this was soon stolen. Returning to his flat, Tintin discovers a rolled-up parchment hidden under furniture, on which is a part of a riddle that points to the location of treasure, and he realises that this must have been hidden in the mast of the model which Snowy had broken. Informing Haddock about the riddle, the captain tells him of how Sir Francis Haddock battled with the pirate Red Rackham somewhere in the West Indies, before killing him in single combat and blowing up his ship. Haddock gets somewhat carried away in his telling of the story: destroying his flat while re-enacting the battle scenes. He also reveals that three models exist in total. Barnaby then turns up at Tintin''s doorstep but is shot down by unknown assailants. Later Tintin is kidnapped by the perpetrators of the shooting. They are revealed to be the Bird brothers, two unscrupulous antique dealers who own a third model of the Unicorn. They are behind the theft of Tintin''s model and Sakharine''s parchment, knowing that only with all three parchments can the location of the treasure be found for the following book Red Rackham''s treasure. Tintin escapes from the Bird brothers'' country estate, Marlinspike Hall, whilst the Captain arrives with the police officers Thompson and Thomson to arrest them. However, it is found that they do not have two of the parchments. These are found to have been stolen by Aristides Silk, a kleptomaniac specialising in wallet-snatching. As the pickpocket is cornered, his cache of stolen wallets is found, amongst which are the Bird Brothers'' wallets containing the missing two parchments. By combining the three parchments, Tintin and Haddock discover the coordinates of the hidden treasure, and begin to plan for an expedition to find it. The story ends where it started, leading Tintin to the rest of the treasure.

The Secret of the Unicorn

Hack, a low level employee at Nike, is contracted by one of his higher ups, John Nike, Vice President of Guerrilla Marketing, for an ambitious marketing campaign. The company is planning to release the new Nike Mercurys -- which sell for thousands of dollars but cost pennies to manufacture -- and in order to drum up interest in the items, John Nike plans to increase "street cred" in the worst way possible: by having Hack kill people who try to buy them. Hack, bound by his contract but unable to contemplate murder on his own, subcontracts to the Police, now a mercenary organization, beginning a chain of business transactions which could land Nike in hot water should word of the plot leak. After several children are murdered at various Nike chains on opening day, agent Jennifer Government takes it upon herself to track down the perpetrators, even if she can''t get the funding for it. Along the way, readers are also introduced to Billy NRA, an athletic man who gets in over his head, and Buy Mitsui, a former French stockbroker. Also involved is Hack''s unemployed girlfriend, Violet, who engineers a dangerous computer virus to sell to the highest bidder. Billy NRA is caught up in the illegal business of the NRA. He is forced to tag along on NRA operations involving murder and even attempt (and fail) to assassinate the President of the United States. Throughout the novel Billy teeters between helping the NRA and helping the government. Buy Mitsui starts the novel as a successful stockbroker who just made a big break. Feeling good about it, he gives a girl some money in the mall only to find out that the girl is killed after she uses the money to buy Nike Mercurys. Feeling personally responsible for the girl''s death, Buy''s life begins to go downhill. He contemplates suicide until he gets help from Jennifer Government, who he then begins dating. He becomes a part of both Jennifer and her daughter''s life. Violet eventually sells her software to ExxonMobil who take her all over the world to exploit the software''s power. This sudden disappearance leads Hack to turn to Claire, Violet''s sister, which in turn destroys Violet and Hack''s relationship. After the company uses Violet''s virus, they never pay Violet the sums due. Angered, Violet joins ranks with John Nike who could help her get revenge. John Nike tells her to kidnap Jennifer Government''s daughter to keep the government off his back. She is able to kidnap Kate, Jennifer Government''s daughter, but in the end, Jennifer Government and Hack are able to retrieve her and ultimately, bring John Nike to justice.

Jennifer Government

According to The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1967), : "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a girl in prison." The story''s plot follows four characters'' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope&mdash;a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love "rectangle" between beautiful but self-absorbed Hetty Sorrel, Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young squire who seduces her, Adam Bede, her unacknowledged suitor, and Dinah Morris, Hetty''s cousin, a fervent, virtuous and beautiful Methodist lay preacher. (The real village where Adam Bede was set is Ellastone on the Staffordshire / Derbyshire border, a few miles from Uttoxeter and Ashbourne, and near to Alton Towers. Eliot''s father lived in the village as a carpenter in a substantial house now known as Adam Bede''s Cottage). Adam is a local carpenter much admired for his integrity and intelligence, in love with Hetty. She is attracted to Arthur, the charming local squire''s grandson and heir, and falls in love with him. When Adam interrupts a tryst between them, Adam and Arthur fight. Arthur agrees to give up Hetty and leaves Hayslope to return to his militia. After he leaves, Hetty Sorrel agrees to marry Adam but shortly before their marriage, discovers she is pregnant.In desperation, she leaves in search of Arthur. She cannot find him; unwilling to return to the village on account of the shame and ostracism she would have to endure, she delivers her baby with the assistance of a friendly woman she encounters. Later, the child is killed when she abandons it in a field. Not being able to bear the child''s cries she tries to come back but she is too late when she finds out that it dies of exposure. Hetty is caught and tried for child murder. She is found guilty and sentenced to hang. Dinah enters the prison and pledges to stay with Hetty until the end. Her compassion brings about Hetty''s contrite confession. When Arthur Donnithorne, on leave from the militia for his grandfather''s funeral, hears of her impending execution, he races to the court and has the sentence commuted to transportation. Ultimately, Adam and Dinah, who gradually become aware of their mutual love, marry and live peacefully with his family.

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