A penniless Countess poses as a charitable lady, but instead, she leads a ring of unstoppable jewel thieves with a flair for breaking and entering into the houses of her careless rich guests.
Something evil is afoot at a gentleman's academy.
Persuaded to follow a defecting civil servant who has been tricked into smuggling secret papers into East Germany, Simon finds himself playing the part of a British agent to save the man's life.
When agents in Lord Barnes's department at the Ministry of Top Secret Information are murdered, all the evidence points to an enemy agent named Kartovski.