After more than three years in exile on Grayson, several of Honor''s old political enemies decide to try to kill two birds with one stone. Klaus Hauptmann is able to have Honor appointed as commander of HMAMC Wayfarer, a prototype Q-ship. He believes that Honor will either deal with the piracy problems that are causing him losses in the Silesian Confederacy or die trying. Wayfarer includes space for carrying a squadron of Light Attack Craft (LACs), a large number of missile pods that can be quickly deployed through the ship''s rear cargo doors, and unusually heavy energy weaponry for the ship''s size and intended role, but it is essentially still a merchant ship, much slower than a regular navy vessel and with lighter defenses. Honor''s orders are to lead a squadron of four Q-ships to fight piracy in the Silesian Confederacy. Although piracy is a chronic problem in Silesia, the Royal Navy managed to keep it somewhat in check until the war began; with the fleet needed elsewhere piracy has gone completely out of control and the powerful Manticoran merchant cartels demand that the Navy do something. There are other considerations: Silesia is something of a disputed territory between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Andermani Empire. While Honor leads her crew in battles against various pirates, the Havenites are also conducting covert commerce raiding in Silesia, in an attempt to destabilize Manticoran trade in the region and present themselves in a more favorable light to the Andermani. The Havenite light cruiser PNS Vaubon, under Citizen Commander Warner Caslet, had been pursuing a particularly loathsome group of raiders whose actions were repugnant to most of the Havenite officers involved. When Caslet sees some of these raiders attacking what he thinks is a Manticore merchant ship he decides to attack the raiders, despite being outnumbered. The Wayfarer destroys the raiders and Caslet is forced to surrender Vaubon to the superior vessel. With the additional intelligence gathered by the Havenites, Honor takes the fight the pirates led by the terrorist Andre Warnecke and with a hostage gambit liberates the planet Sidemore, which had been occupied by the pirates. After her defeat of the pirates Honor goes looking for the Havenite commerce raiders. This leads to a larger-scale conflict with Havenite forces. Klaus Hauptmann has traveled on the liner Artemis to see the piracy situation first hand in Silesea, and Honor encounters them just as the Havenites are closing in on the Artemis. In the ensuing battle Wayfarer is able to destroy two Havenite battlecruisers but is itself ultimately destroyed. The few surviving members of Honor''s crew, along with several Havenite prisoners, are rescued and return to Andermani space. Because of Honor''s bravery in saving Hauptmann''s life during the battle the two are reconciled.

Honor Among Enemies

Danny exacerbates a small electrical fire, altering an experimental crystalline semiconductor material Prof. Bullfinch was evaluating. Prof. Bullfinch is able to use this altered material to create ISIT (the Invisibility Simulator with Intromittent Transmission), a dragonfly-like probe which could be piloted with a Telepresence helmet and gauntlet gloves. The trio each tries out the device. Irene uses ISIT to birdwatch. Joe uses the device to observe a beehive from the inside. Danny discovers a bully nicknamed ''Snitcher'' cheating by copying the word list to the school spelling bee and dishonestly winning himself a boombox. The ISIT is outfitted with a speaker which is subsequently used by Danny as a means to pretend to be the bully''s conscience, in order get Snitcher to confess to his father. However, ISIT also causes problems, as soon afterwards Prof. Bullfinch is visited by General Gruntel. The general reveals (in very authoritarian language) he wishes to use ISIT as a tool to spy not only on enemy governments, but against Americans as well. General Gruntel attempts to seize the unit, but is rebuffed by Doctor Grimes. While going to get authorization to seize the ISIT, he leaves the professor''s lab under guard. Danny, Irene, and Joe decide to take matters into their own hands and stealthily break into the lab to recover the probe. The probe''s absence is realized which leads to Colonel Twist, the commanding officer of the two guards, to delusively believe the device has been stolen by a foreign power. As he is being confronted by Twist, the Professor realizes the trio of friends are responsible. He informs Danny that without destroying his notes detailing the creation of ISIT, either the Soviets or the US military could still recreate it. While the local national guard arrives to secure the house against foreign spies, Danny and the Professor make their way to the probe''s controls and use it to cause a fire that destroys both the notes and probe. Dr. Grimes arrives with orders from the Governor for the military personnel to stand down and leave the Bullfinch residence. Bullfinch informs Grimes that the device and his notes have been destroyed, leaving him the only man to remember the blueprints by memory. Professor Bullfinch also tells Dr. Grimes and Danny that he will not recreate ISIT until the world is ready for it.

Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy

At a weekend party at Farthing House, a large country house in Hampshire, Sir James Thirkie, a prominent politician who is considered likely to become a leading minister in an upcoming cabinet shuffle, is found murdered in his room, with a yellow Star of David pinned to his chest. Though suspicion immediately falls upon David Kahn, the only Jew invited to the party, the lead investigator, Inspector Peter Carmichael, is unconvinced. Carmichael, who along with Sergeant Royston was sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the murder, suspects that the star was placed on the body to divert attention towards David. Equally skeptical is David''s wife Lucy, the daughter of estate owner Lord Eversley, who notes the tension between Thirke''s newly-pregnant wife, Angela, and Angela''s sister, Daphne, who was having an affair with Thirke. As Carmichael begins his investigation, he requests that the assembled guests remain at the house. Chafing at the oppressive atmosphere, Lucy accepts an offer from her father to go riding; while out, they are attacked by a young man, who shoots at them with a rifle before being killed by Lord Eversley. An inspection of the body uncovers a membership card identifying him as a Communist and an identity card for an Alan Brown, a different name from the one on the party ID. Carmichael is puzzled by the incident, which seems unconnected to Thirke''s murder. As pressure grows for Carmichael to release the guests, a search of the Kahns'' apartment turns up letters that offer evidence of David''s involvement with an underground Jewish organization that sought the murder of Thirke and the other members of the "Farthing Set". Aware that an arrest will mean the effective conviction of David Kahn, yet still not convinced of his guilt, Carmichael convinces him to remain at Farthing House under police supervision. Returning to London, Carmichael is given until Friday to conclude the case. His ability to act is further hampered by the political situation, as Mark Normanby, Daphne''s husband, the Foreign Secretary, and one of the guests in attendance at Farthing House, emerges from the cabinet shuffle as Prime Minister. Exploiting both Thirke''s murder and the shooting incident, Normanby announces the introduction of identity cards, the expulsion of foreign nationals, the banning of Communists, and a delay in the general election. Resisting political pressure to arrest David Kahn, Carmichael pursues his investigation of Angela Thirke, discovering that her baby was likely the result of an affair with the family''s chauffeur. Locating Brown''s girlfriend, a young woman named Agnes Timms, in Southend-on-Sea, he travels there with Royston to interview her, whereupon they discover that Brown was approached by Angela Thirke to stage the attack on Lord Eversley, ostensibly as a joke. Returning to London, Carmichael learns that the yellow star was purchased by someone claiming to be David Kahn. With a warrant now issued to arrest David, Carmichael calls to warn the Kahns, giving them time to escape. With the Kahns now on the run, Carmichael goes to Wales to interview Thirke''s mother, who recounts Angela Thirke''s admission that she helped Lord Eversley and Mark Normanby murder her husband. While returning to London to arrest Angela and Normanby, however, Carmichael discovers that Agnes Timms has been murdered. Undaunted, Carmichael presents his findings to Penn-Barkis, the head of Scotland Yard, identifying the involvement of the three suspects in a conspiracy to murder Thirke and place the blame on the Jews for it. After listening to Carmichael''s description, though, Penn-Barkis orders Carmichael to drop the case, using Carmichael''s homosexuality to blackmail him into acquiescing in the official story.

Farthing

The novel follows a seemingly relativistic plot, where time and space disappear as absolutes. The first part concerns Marc, the son of a small-town prostitute who becomes the boatman, ferrying tourists from the mainland to Davenhall, the small island in the river where he grew up. Marc leaves town the night he sees a strange man die at his mother''s feet, and spends fifteen years on the boat, never setting foot in town, until one day, when he meets a girl in a blue dress, who never returns with the other tourists. Marc goes onto the island to look for her, and sees his mother. Their meeting conjures up the ghost of the man who died fifteen years before, and his story takes over the novel. The ghost tells his story in first person. His name was Banning Jainlight, and he begins by recounting his birth. He has the ability to look through the windows of his bedroom and see his time, as if looking at the Zeitgeist. After killing a brother and burning down the ranch house where he grew up, Jainlight moves to a city, where he becomes the writer of pornographic stories. These stories are eventually being bought by a single customer, an eccentric German named Client X. Jainlight writes stories about a fantasy woman who he is in love with, and she is also an expression of a woman that Client X was once in love with, who later died. The stories alter the course of history, as they change Hitler''s mind about how to conduct the war. England falls. Russia and Germany have a tense peace. The Germans decide that they are finished with Jainlight, and they kill his wife and daughter to silence him. He lives for a long time in a prison. Eventually, he hears his stories, broadcast over the radio as propaganda. He comes up with an escape plan, after finding Adolf Hitler in the same prison, now a senile old man. Jainlight and Hitler escape to America, to chase the ghost of the woman they both love. Hitler dies in New York City. Jainlight finds his way to Davenhall, where he lives for seventeen years in the hotel with Marc and his mother, trying to summon up the courage to ask for forgiveness. On the night Marc leaves town, he knows his life is slipping away, and he staggers down the hall, hoping to have time, but he doesn''t. The custom in town is to hang the dead in a tree until they say their name. When Marc''s mother claims to know the name of the dead man in the tree, she is accused of lying. Somehow, the 20th century heals itself, the two timelines, the one we know, and Banning''s timeline of a German victory, come back together. Marc''s mother passes away shortly after her son returns to the island. After her death, Marc goes to chase after the girl in the blue dress, after the 20th century, and winds up traveling through time, going from the end of the century back to its beginning.

Tours of the Black Clock

Crystal, the only daughter of the old, long-exiled haughty royalist, the Comte de Cambray, is on the eve of betrothal to de Marmont, (secretly an ardent Bonapartist). Bobby Clyffurde, the Englishman, who is in love with Crystal, confronts Victor de Marmont about why he is pretending to be a royalist. De Marmont replies that he has never led the Comte to suppose anything, the Comte has merely taken de Marmont’s political convictions for granted. As if two potential suitors weren’t enough, Crystal has yet another admirer, Maurice de St. Genis, whose impecunious state (her father sees him as a penniless, out-at-elbows, good for nothing) has precluded him from obtaining her hand in marriage. Howeve at the moment of Crystal’s betrothal to de Marmont, Maurice finally gets his revenge upon his rival. Once the guests have assembled for the ceremony, there is a disturbance from the end of the corridor and St. Genis enters the room, his rough clothes and muddy boots providing a contrast to the immaculate get-up of the Comte’s guests. Looking flushed and clutching his cane he announces that he has only come to avert the awful catastrophe that is about to fall on the Comte and his family. At the young man’s ominous words, M. le Comte goes pale and demands to know what catastrophe could be worse than twenty years of exile? "An alliance with a traitor, M. le Comte" he replies. St. Genis goes on to accuse his rival of pinning Napoleon’s proclamation on the walls of Grenoble. Yet, rather than deny the accusation de Marmont defends his actions with fervor, pulling a copy of the declaration from his pocket and waving it at the assembled group while shouting “Vive l’Empereur”. Despite the sudden rupture of her engagement, Crystal‘s heart is by no means broken, but it is not St. Genis who in the end wins her love, for we are left with the understanding that it is Clyffurde, the English merchant who eventually overrides the prejudices of the old French count. Clyffurde laughingly asks Crystal’s aunt, Mme. la Duchesse “Do you think that if I promise never to buy or sell gloves again, but in future to try and live like a gentleman-he will consent?”

The Bronze Eagle

Ralph is a mouse who lives in the run-down Mountain View Inn, a battered resort hotel in the Sierra Nevada of California. Ralph longs for a life of danger and speed, wishing to get away from his relatives, who worry about the mice colony being discovered. One day a boy named Keith Gridley and his family visit the hotel on their way through California. Keith leaves a toy motorcycle on his bedside table, which interests Ralph. While Keith is away, Ralph attempts to ride it, but cannot figure out how to start it. Startled by a telephone ring, he and the motorcycle fall into a metal wastebasket. Keith discovers his missing motorcycle in the wastebasket along with Ralph and the two strike a friendship. Although Ralph''s mother worries that he is in contact with humans, Keith shows Ralph how to start the motorcycle--make an engine-like noise--and lets Ralph ride it during the nighttime. While Keith and his family explore California, Ralph recklessly rides the motorcycle through the depths of the hotel. One night he is spotted by Keith''s mother, and Mr. Gridley thinks she is imagining things, but she is still sure that she saw a mouse riding a motorcycle. Ralph and the motorcycle are almost sucked up by a maid''s vacuum cleaner, but Ralph escapes, riding into a pile of dirty bedsheets. He escapes by chewing holes in the sheets, but, unfortunately, he must leave the motorcycle behind. The management discover the chewed-up bedsheets, resulting in a "war on mice". After Ralph loses the motorcycle Keith loses trust in him, although he still brings the mice colony room service. One night Keith becomes very sick with a high fever, but his parents don''t have any more aspirin, nor are able to obtain one until morning. To regain Keith''s trust, Ralph searches the hotel for an aspirin tablet, at risk to himself, for the medicine could prove fatal to a small mouse if ingested (In fact, that had caused the death of Ralph''s father). His adventures include venturing outside the hotel, being trapped by guests, narrowly escaping an owl, and hatching a plan of adventure which involves Keith''s toy ambulance and the elevator. When Ralph succeeds, Keith''s health is restored. He agrees to let Ralph keep the motorcycle, which is found by the bellboy, Matt, after he leaves, and Ralph uses the space under the TV set in the lobby to use as a garage; the motorcycle is his to keep.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Reader divides his exploration of the potato into three sections: South America, Europe, The World. The first section describes the environments, The Andes Mountains and the altiplano, in which the potato developed. In the past, at least 3,000 years ago, people living in these environments began to take advantage of a naturally occurring plant. Over time human interaction developed a flowering plant with a nutritionally valuable, and good tasting, tuber that then became an important component of the human diet. Reader spends several pages describing the way in which the Spanish set up colonies and an empire in South America to mine mineral resources and exploit available manpower. He lays out the time line of events and shows that it took several decades for the value of the potato to become obvious to any of the Europeans. Interspersed in this discussion, Reader describes current conditions of potato growing through the Andean region. In the second section of the book, Reader traces the potato’s path across the Atlantic Ocean. The many stops on Atlantic islands gave the plant time to adjust to different environments and day lengths. Reader devotes many pages to the process of determining who had the potato first and where they were growing it and for what scale of consumption. This seems like a Western concern rooted in basic competition. However, tracing this particular time line illustrates commodity chains, economic development, culture change (including scientific theory and method), and biological change. In Europe, the potato was not immediately well received. Reader discusses how it was accused of causing leprosy or other ailments and then how cultural groups’ perception of the potato flipped and it became something entirely healthful. The potato also is at the center of demographic and cultural change and this is most clear in the case of Ireland. Reader’s explanation of what happened during the great Potato Famine of 1845 to 1850 discusses the biosocial and biopolitical processes of the period. The Propitious Esculent proposes that the fate of Ireland was not solely the fault of a fungus but the result of a chain of governmental decisions that were set into motion because of the properties of the potato. In the final portion of the book, Reader outlines the worldwide spread of the potato and how people around the globe have set out to study the potato to protect its genetic health. The potato spread successfully in part due to the lessons learned after Irish Potato Famine in which biologists and farmers created methods to prevent fungus induced blight. The second point, protecting genetic health, is especially important since such a large part of the global population is dependent on the potato for a stable diet. Since there has been such a long period of human intervention in the development of the potato, it has genetic properties that have become rare as well as weaknesses in the genetic code that lead to defects in different parts of the plant. Pooling global knowledge and resources, biologists, ecologists, and anthropologists at CIP (International Potato Center) are securing the varieties of the potato.

The Propitious Esculent

The wizard Od, a giantess who travels mysteriously, accompanied by numerous injured animals, which she heals, saved the city of Kelior, founded a school of magic there, then disappeared into the wilderness. Hundreds of years later, she appears at Brenden Vetch''s small farm, inviting him to study at her school to perfect the magic he wields over plants, and finds in them. After he makes the long journey to the city, Brenden discovers that Kelior, instead of being a bastion for learning and exploration, is fearful of unfettered magic; the king and his wizard Valoren Greye outlaw any new type of magic, which they see as a threat to Kelior''s order and safety. They want magic to be subservient to their rulership. As Brenden acclimates to his strange environment, Princess Sulys attempts to come to terms with her engagement to Valoren, a man she scarcely knows, which engagement was arranged by her father. But Valoren, and her father, take her for granted, and won''t listen to her. Among other things, she wants Valoren to know that she has some magical power. Instead of preparing for her upcoming wedding, she prefers to converse with Ceta Thiel, a historian writing about Od. Her discoveries about the wizard puzzle her and her lover, Yar Ayrwood, who works at Od''s school. Yar ventures out of the school and into the city to learn more, unintentionally involving his curious student Elver. The wizard Valoren is too preoccupied to help with his wedding arrangements: Not only is Brenden proving to be an enigma, but a new magic-user, Tyramin, and his daughter Mistral have brought a magic show to the Twilight Quarter of the city. Believing these magicians to be dangerous, Valoren commands that Tyramin and Mistral are to be investigated. As the warden for the Twilight Quarter, Arneth Pyt has to obey Valoren''s order, even as he falls in love with the mysterious Mistral. When the king and Valoren try to suppress these new magics, an uprising that they could never foresee forces change upon the static kingdom. Mistral asks the king to allow Tyramin to perform for the king in the palace. (Actually, Tyramin has been dead for some time, but Mistral has presented him by illusion at performances. Sulys gets serious about magic, and stands up to her father during the performance, arguing that the king and Valoren have not been paying attention to her, and that Mistral should be allowed to practice her magic within Kelior. Yar and Valoren return from a search for Brenden, combined with an investigation of mysterious rock-like beings in the far north, and the beings, and Brenden, come with them. Elver turns out to be Od, in disguise. Od says that she wants the school to continue, but without the restraints imposed by the king, which she has experienced as Elver. The king agrees, and magic becomes an art again, rather than a trade.

Od Magic

A group of scientists, including psychologist Norman Johnson, mathematician Harry Adams, biologist Beth Halpern, and astrophysicist Ted Fielding, along with U.S. Navy personnel, are dispatched to a deep sea habitat at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to explore a crashed spacecraft. To their surprise, they discover the spacecraft is not alien, but an American spacecraft constructed in the future and apparently sent through time, crashing 350 years before its creation. On further exploration, the team discovers a mysterious spherical artifact, clearly of extraterrestrial origin, which quickly becomes the focus of their attention. Harry becomes quite certain that, because the ship''s future builders didn''t seem to learn that their ship had already been discovered, the members of the team aren''t likely to survive. At this point, a storm traps the scientists on the ocean floor without contact or support from the surface for over a week. The crew soon focuses on asking questions about the sphere and then on attempting to open it and learn about its nature, contents, and origin. Harry eventually succeeds in opening it and goes inside. Upon returning, he has a terrible headache and he remembers little about what happened inside or how he opened it. The scientists are eventually contacted by an intelligent, seemingly-friendly lifeform which calls itself Jerry, apparently from within the sphere. It first contacts them via a numeric code, which Harry translates. But while they struggle to communicate with Jerry, increasingly bizarre and deadly events occur, including the appearance of sea creatures that Beth claims don''t exist. Jerry tells them he is "manifesting" the creatures. Members of the team start to die in various attacks by sea life, and the dwindling survivors struggle to placate the unthinkably powerful, childlike, and temperamental Jerry. Norman suddenly has an important role when he realizes he must use psychology to keep the surviving team (now only himself, Beth, and Harry) alive by placating Jerry. Translating the original code himself, though, Norman discovers that Jerry is actually Harry: by entering the sphere, Harry acquired the power to manifest his subconscious thoughts into reality. As Harry noted his childhood fears of squids and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, he has unconsciously created them as an enemy. Beth and Norman tranquilize Harry with a powerful mixture of sedatives and wait for contact to be re-established with the surface. However, although Harry is sedated, the manifestations continue. Beth accuses Norman of having entered the sphere and gaining access to the power. Though unable to recall this incident, Norman is close to yielding until he watches a security video of Beth entering the sphere herself. Concluding that Norman is a threat to her, Beth irrationally plants potent explosives around the spacecraft and habitat and then attempts to suffocate Norman with the habitat''s climate systems. Norman escapes to the spacecraft and, figuring out at last how to open it, enters the sphere. Norman begins to ascend by himself in the submarine, but realizes that he could never leave the others to die. Now with the same power of thought as Harry and Beth, Norman fights Beth and brings both her and Harry to the escape submarine before the explosives destroy the site. Afterward, while in a surface decompression chamber, the three survivors ponder what to tell the Navy about what happened. Realizing they could not control the power, they decide to use the power to remove it from themselves and their memories simultaneously, replacing it with memories of a technical failure. Afterwards, as they mourn the colleagues lost to this scenario, Norman compliments Beth''s appearance, saying that she looks lovely despite their hardship in the deep. Beth only smiles.

Sphere

"Many people ask what the meaning of life is. I know: it''s tango." So says Virtanen, the hero of Tango on intohimoni, or Tango is my Passion, the definitive Finnish tango novel. Virtanen is a tango obsessive, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject, which he insists on sharing with everybody he meets. He goes dancing every day in the various dance halls of Helsinki and sometimes Turku, but he only dances the tangos. But Virtanen also has principles. At the age of 15 he had read that Plato recommends 24 as the ideal age for sexual intercourse for women, and 35 for men. If Virtanen can hold on to his virginity until the age of 36, he will have beaten the old fraud. But this is difficult for someone with such a passion for tango: "My penis rises and interferes with the dance. So, immediately after the dance, I hasten into the woods, break a handful of twigs off a birch tree, and punish my penis with many sharp little blows. The chastisement makes it calm down, and I can then go and invite a new girl onto the floor."(page 8) Virtanen manages to avoid the blandishments of the various women he meets in the Helsinki hot spots, but when he falls in love with Anja his troubles really start. Interspersed with Virtanen''s adventures is a history of Finnish tango, sometimes given by Virtanen himself, and sometimes by an anonymous third person voice, identified by a different typeface. Written by the Finnish bandleader M.A. Numminen, Tango on intohimoni has been translated into German, Swedish, and Italian; but there is no official English translation.

Tango on intohimoni

The Arrangement is the first-person story of Evangelos Arness, aka Evans Arness, aka Eddie Anderson, a second-generation Greek-American World War II veteran, a son of an Anatolian rug merchant who went broke after the 1929 Depression. He has come to use the name "Eddie Anderson" in his career as a self-loathing advertising executive and the name "Evans Arness" in his second career as a muck-raking magazine reporter, the career in which he ostensibly takes pride (Lincoln Steffens is his role model). His personal life is just as duplicitous: to outsiders he is happily married but is in fact a compulsive adulterer with his wife Florence''s "don''t ask - don''t tell" tacit approval, one aspect of the titular "arrangement". His serial adultery ends when he begins a liaison with a female assistant at his advertising firm, Gwen Hunt, whose independent mind fascinates him; he becomes obsessed with her, perhaps even feeling true love towards her. He fails to lock a drawer with their nude photographs, perhaps subsconsciously wanting to be found out; a prying maid discovers them and shows them to Florence (and before that, it turns out, to their adopted daughter, now a university student). Florence persuades him to leave Gwen and to re-invigorate their life with a self-improvement regimen; both seem perfectly content though somewhat dull but after several months he crashes his car in an apparent suicide attempt. The rest of the novel deals with his inability to return to his old role as he attempts to find a new life in which he can be who he authentically is rather than who others desire him to be or whom he has sold people on his being. He has to returns to New York City where he had left his parents and brother after college to deal with his father''s dying. After several false starts, in which the newly "authentic" Eddie is arrested for indecent exposure, burns down his parents'' former house that had become a symbol of father''s tyranny over the family, is shot by Gwen''s jealous suitor, and is committed to a mental hospital, Eddie settles down with Gwen in Connecticut as a liquor dealer and starts to write short stories.

The Arrangement

Monty Bodkin, despite his wealth, needs to hold a job down for a full year ("There are wheels within wheels"), so when he is sacked from his job assistant-editing Tiny Tots for Lord Tilbury''s Mammoth Publishing Company, he jumps at his pal Hugo Carmody''s tip that his old job as Lord Emsworth''s secretary is available, especially on hearing that his former fiancee Sue Brown will be on the premises. Hearing that Monty is on his way, and fearing Ronnie''s jealous nature, Sue heads to London, dines with Bodkin and warns him to be distant; on the train back, they both encounter Ronnie''s formidable mother Lady Julia, and claim not to know each other. Lady Julia, having seen Sue and Monty at lunch together, tells her son about their suspicious behaviour, and Ronnie is at once convinced that Sue loves Monty. Meanwhile, Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, unaware of these developments, task Percy Pilbeam with obtaining Galahad''s manuscript, used to ensure Sue and Ronnie''s marriage is permitted. Lord Tilbury, also wanting the book, visits the castle and is rebuffed. Leaving, he calls on the Empress, but is locked in a shed by Pirbright the pig-man, instructed by a suspicious Lord Emsworth to guard the pig closely. He is released by Monty Bodkin, who he persuades to steal the book by offering him a year''s guaranteed employment - he is worried about his tenure at the castle, as Lord Emsworth suspects him, being the nephew of his rival Parsloe-Parsloe, of scheming to nobble his pig, the Empress. Beach, catching Pilbeam in the act of grabbing the book, tells Galahad and is instructed to guard the book himself. When he overhears Tilbury and Bodkin plotting in the garden at the Emsworth Arms, however, he sees the task is too much for him and hands the book on to Ronnie Fish. Fish is distracted by his loss of Sue''s love, but once the storm breaks feels better; he sees Monty Bodkin, drenched from the rain, and is friendly towards him. However, when he sees "Sue" tattooed on Bodkin''s chest, his mood turns sour once more. Sue, having heard Ronnie''s kind words, is also cheered and rushes to find Ronnie; when he is once more cold and distant, she breaks down and breaks off the engagement. Bodkin finds Ronnie and asks him a favour - to get Beach to hand over the book, explaining he needs it in order to marry his girl. Ronnie, inwardly furious, chivalrously hands it over. Gally sees Sue is upset, learns all and confronts Ronnie with his idiocy. He explains about Bodkin and Sue, and Ronnie forgives her. Gally then confronts his sisters, threatening them once more with his book; although Julia is at first unmoved, when Gally relates a few of the stories it contains concerning her late husband "Fishy" Fish, she is defeated. Bodkin, having engaged Pilbeam to find the book for him, tells the detective he is no longer needed, revealing where he has hidden the manuscript. Pilbeam steals it, planning to auction it between Tilbury and the Connie-Parsloe syndicate, and hides it in a disused shed. He informs Lord Emsworth that Bodkin released Tilbury, and Bodkin is fired. Pilbeam is summoned to see Lady Constance, and primes himself with a bottle of champagne. She is insulting, and Pilbeam vows to sell the book to Tilbury, who he calls promising to deliver it, but he retires to bed first to sleep off the booze. Lord Emsworth, having moved the Empress to her new sty for safety, finds her eating the manuscript. Pilbeam sees this, and hurries to Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, but is denied his fee when they find the pig has eaten the book. He then rushes to the Emsworth Arms, and gets a cheque out of Lord Tilbury, telling him the book is in the pigsty. Bodkin is on hand, however, and destroys the cheque and warns Emsworth by phone that someone is heading for his sty. Later, full of remorse, he offers Pilbeam a thousand pounds to employ him for a year in his agency. While Emsworth is being badgered by his sisters into denying Ronnie his money, a mud-spattered Lord Tilbury is brought in, captured by Pirbright. Gally and Sue then appear, informing Emsworth that Ronnie has the pig in his car and will drive off with it if denied his cash. Emsworth coughs up, and the happy couple depart, much to Gally''s satisfaction.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Honor Among Enemies

By David Weber

Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy

By Raymond Abrashkin

Farthing

By Jo Walton

Tours of the Black Clock

By Steve Erickson

The Bronze Eagle

By Baroness Emma Orczy

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

By Beverly Cleary

The Propitious Esculent

By John Reader

Od Magic

By Patricia A. McKillip

Sphere

By Michael Crichton

Tango on intohimoni

No Author Listed

The Arrangement

By Elia Kazan

Heavy Weather

By P. G. Wodehouse